Summer Alphabet Adventures: E

E is for...East!! So maybe this is as far as we got over the summer, mostly because of my morning sickness making it nearly impossible to get out in the heat, but I think the boys had fun with it anyway. Maybe I can continue it into the fall, you know, when my energy comes back and it's not so hot outside! But back to this post...East. Yup, we headed East for the day to Wrightsville Beach with the four of us and my nephew Tim.

Here's Tim helping the boys make itty-bitty sand castles. The kind that were made from one bucket of sand. The kind that were perfect for building and quickly stomping on.
Zack's picking up seashells to decorate the mini-castles.

Daddy hanging out in the surf with Xander--it was just too cute!!

Zack's apparent new hobby is boogie boarding. He had a great time and loved that Tim was helping him out!

We parked our stuff right in front of this huge hole. It was deep enough that it was almost above Xander's head when he got in.

So at lunchtime, we headed up to the pier, within sight of our umbrella. But of course they didn't take credit cards and the chicken strips with a drink were $8!! Now, we had noticed the storm clouds rolling in just south of us, but we figured we would be right back. So everything was left there on the beach: towels, snacks, chair, umbrella, my camera. We tried to find another place to eat on the island, but they apparently don't like tourists much, because they didn't take credit cards either. We ended up going all the way to Landfall to Wendy's. All this time of course, it was starting to rain and it was getting darker. I didn't really want to admit to Mark that I left the camera on the beach, though.

While we were at Wendy's, the bottom dropped! It poured and poured and poured and poured!! Thunder and lightning, too, and lots of it! The storm decided to stall over the Wilmington area, of course. By the time we got back to the beach, Mark and Tim sprinted out on the beach (while there was still lightning) to get all of our stuff. (Time quickly brought the towel bag to me in the car so I could check on my camera--it was okay, thankfully!) We hung out under the gazebo for a while because the rain was getting lighter and the sky brighter. We saw several bolts of lightning over the ocean and counted to see how far away they were.

Anyway, we drove four hours round trip to spend about two to two and a half hours on the beach. We weren't sure if it was worth it, but just look at the faces on those boys (and I didn't even get to capture Xander's best face).