Cadence's Birthday Beach Trip

We spent Cadence's birthday weekend at Oak Island with Pap-paw Mike and Deryle. As many times as we've been down to their house, we've never been with them! It was a fun trip for everyone. We had lots of beach time!

Matt had his church league softball tournament on Friday night (the 17th). They won and won and won again making his team the champs but resulting in him getting home after 11:00 that night. (Since that was the night of the championship games, we delayed our trip by a bit.) Anyway, he got home very late! We wanted to maximize our time that we would have at the beach so we made plans to leave our house at 5:00 (AM!) the next morning. We made it to the beach house shortly after 9:00 including a trip to the grocery store on our way in. After unloading all of our stuff at the house, we trekked over the bridge to the beach. The girls had a great time doing what they do best on the beach--play! Although both girls did go back to sleep for a while on the ride, Cadence was still pretty pooped out. She fell asleep snuggled under a beach towel. Poor girl!

Dad and Deryle arrived later that afternoon (Saturday). The girls were excited to see them when we went back to the house after our beach day. We all went out for dinner and ice cream that night. Ainsley even tried her hand at Taylor Swift karaoke but it didn't sing along with her and she wasn't so sure about singing alone with a crowd of people she didn't know watching!

Sunday was Cadence's birthday. When we got to the beach, the water was nice and calm. We saw lots of porpoises playing/eating. Some were even jumping all the way out of the water. It was so much fun to watch! The water was so calm that we were able to go out past the breakers (what few there were) so the girls could just float and "swim" between the adults. The water was so relaxing! After our picnic lunch, Ainsley and Cadence wanted to build sandcastles, but Pap-paw Mike had other ideas. We built sand animals! Here we are in the process of building the alligator. When we were finished for the day, we had completed the alligator and built a sea serpent to go along with it.

That evening after dinner and before cake the girls wanted to go to the playground near the beach house. Pap-paw Mike went with us and was excited to show the girls some of the wildlife that lives in that area. There's a river that leads to the waterway which has some beach space along it. All sorts of little crabs live on the beach there. Pap-paw Mike picked up a few and even got the girls to hold them too! I didn't have the camera with me, but I promise, the girls were having a blast picking up the little tiny crabs and holding them! Ainsley carried this one crab with her all along the beach before finally letting it go just before we left.

It was getting quite buggy down at the playground, so we headed back to the house. We had birthday cake for Cadence waiting for us anyway. Cadence loved her cake and had a fantastic time opening her birthday gifts!

Monday, we spent the day at the beach before coming home. Again, Ainsley and Cadence wanted Pap-paw Mike to build them some sort of creature. That day, he decided to build a huge Loggerhead Sea Turtle. By huge, I mean HUGE. It took quite a while to build up enough sand to have a figure formed in the sand. We did it though!

We drove home late that evening after having dinner at one of Pap-paw Mike's favorite restaurants. It was a wonderful weekend jam-packed with fun! We can't wait to go on our next beach trip in August with the Alberty family. Something tells me that the girls are going to want to build sand creatures there too!