A much-needed weekend away!

I'm happy to say that I had a WONDERFUL weekend.

Dave and I decided this past week that the three of us were going to get a place on the beach for the weekend and kick back for a few days and relax.

The weekend started off pretty shaky. I had a procedure done on Thursday, and was feeling pretty awful Friday. Still in a lot of pain, and sick from the pain medication. I was kind of afraid I'd ruin the weekend. But we headed out of work early Friday afternoon nonetheless, and made our way down to the beach. I figured that if nothing else, it would do me some good to just sit around and relax for a few days without having to worry about anything.

The weather forecast wasn't very promising. Rain, all weekend. We didn't care though! We had a nice dinner at a Carribean Resturant on Friday night, and headed back to the condo to relax. We put Kaydie to bed, and sat out on the patio to listen to the waves and have a glass (or two) of wine.

We woke up Saturday, and it was still pretty foggy and rainy. We could see the caps of the waves, and hear them, but couldn't see much else. We sat out again, and had some coffee and just took it all in. I love the scent of the ocean!!!


Next, we headed to a seafood resturant for lunch, where I devoured more Alaskan King Crab legs than I have ever seen in my life, combined :-) Then, it was off to Fort Fisher, and the Aquarium. We thought Kaydie would like that!

To say she liked it was pretty much the understatement of the year. She had a BLAST. It was such a beautiful, cute aquarium. She just kept saying "whoa!" and "look, mommy-fishies!! Swim! Swim!" We also heard a lot of "Get IN!" (she wanted to get in the tanks, too).

We were there for hours. (How do you like the creepy picture of the fish staring at Kaydence?!?!)

She just about fell asleep the minute we got in the car.
Next, we drove to Downtown Wilmington and figured we'd just sightsee while Kaydence napped in her carseat. After an hour or so, she woke up, and we stopped at a cute little indoor-outdoor shopping area called the Cotton Exchange to get a cup of coffee and relax. After we left there, it was still raining, so I looked online and found a Monkey Joes. Dave didn't really want to go there, but once we got there, he was a bigger kid than ANYONE. He and I took turns taking Kaydie up and down the HUGE slides. She has no fear, its amazing. Here she is riding the dinosaur:

We got some dinner, and relaxed. I was secretly a little bummed that it had rained all day, and that we hadn't gotten to take Kaydie on the beach at all. We all snuggled up and watched the little mermaid together, and headed off to bed.

I woke up this morning to the scent of coffee (mmmm). Dave had gotten up with Kaydie and let me sleep. She finally came in and said "Mommy, get UP" and I had to laugh. I got up, and had some coffee and watched the thunderstorm that had rolled in over the ocean. Looked like there was going to be no beach walking for us this weekend. However, miraculously, just as we were cleaning and packing to leave, all of the storms broke, and it cleared up. We had a beautiful view from our patio!! And we were able to take Kaydie down to the beach, after all.

And even better, I already found out I have the day off tomorrow, as we are supposed to get several inches of snow. So my family weekend has just gotten longer!

Its amazing how good it feels to just have family weekends sometimes, with no time restraints, or plans...just time spent together.

:-) I'm one happy mama!