North Carolina Family Vacation Day 3---beach time and Fort Macon

Monday morning (July 7)  we all awoke feeling refreshed and ready to go. After a quick breakfast, we all got changed and headed down to the beach for some fun. Bill had developed quite a nasty sunburn on part of his back and side so he said he would stay out of the water and on the beach with Benjamin.

When we got down to the beach, Rebecca and I started making a sand castle. It was a lot of fun, even if Rebecca kept knocking down the towers as she was trying to put shells on to decorate. As we were completing our creation, my parents, brother and sister showed up.  Then my sister and I decided to take Jacob and Rebecca into the water. It was a lot of fun, getting pushed around by the waves. The waves seemed much stronger today. Every time a wave would hit Jacob, he would run up onto the beach and say “I’ve got to get out of the water.” Rebecca loved running up on the beach too.

In the meantime, Benjamin finally decided to have fun in the sand. My dad laid down next to him and he started throwing the sand on my dad and they also played with a wiffle ball. (My dad got a very nasty sunburn on the back of his legs and on the bottom of his feet while he was laying there playing with Ben). Bill then decided to come out to the water and he tried to unsuccessfully catch a fish with a bucket.

After a while, we decided to head back in to change and head out to get some lunch. We decided to head toward the other side of island as we were going to go a local fort that afternoon. We stopped at a place called “4 Corners Diner” which looked like a type of dive that you might find on “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” TV show. They were only open for breakfast and lunch. The kids had chicken fingers and fries, and Bill and I had one of their specials--fried trout, fries, coleslaw and hush puppies. The trout was really good, and the hush puppies were amazing. It was really good food, and the waitress was really honest. They also had another special for crab cakes that I thought about getting and the waitress said that she would not recommend them that day.

After lunch, we headed out to the edge of the island toward Fort Macon. The last time we had vacationed in this area we went to Fort Macon as well. In the 8 years it had been since we had been here, they had done a ton of renovations, including building a very nice welcome, visitors center that had a little museum in it and bathrooms and a gift shop. They had also added new display rooms into the actual fort itself. Jacob kept calling it “ Fort Bacon” and he said his favorite part of the fort was the cannons.

After we left Fort Macon, we headed back to the condo to relax a little. Once we came back, I decided I needed to head to the store to get some milk and more sunscreen. I called my mom to see if anyone wanted to ride along as it was a 15 min ride to the nearest store. My sister and brother decided to tag along. We went to “Food Lion”  and got some more essentials…including milk, apple juice, cheese danish, sunscreen and chocolate! After we came back, I cooked a very simple dinner of hot dogs and baked beans and we just relaxed a bit and I gave the kids their baths as they were not going walking on the beach that night.

At 8oclock, my sister came over to watch the kids so that Bill and I could go have an evening walk on the beach that was just the 2 of us. It was really nice to be alone with my sweetie and just enjoy the ocean and talk. We walked for about an hour. When we got back my sister left and we got the kids to bed. I straightened up and then took a shower and Bill and I enjoyed a wine cooler on the balcony---colada for him and blackberry breezer for me. Then we came in to head to bed. Another great day on the Crystal Coast.