Trip

It was the middle of winter, and Raleigh was hit with a few snow storms that I did not approve of. So Ray broke out his laptop, checked the number of Hilton points we had, and we booked a few weekends away (thank you credit card usage). It was something to look forward to as we had the coldest winter here since we have lived here.

One of those weekends was this past weekend. We booked a stay at the Hilton in downtown Wilmington, NC (not Delaware, which confused me as I looked on the internet to see if the minor league baseball team was playing this weekend and was looking at the Wilmington, DE team, not the NC team).

It was a great weekend, mainly because we all love the beach so much. We checked in Friday night and walked the Riverwalk and found a yummy ice cream place. Saturday morning, we got up and headed to Wrightsville Beach and we stumbled upon a surfing competition while there. After about an hour and a half at the beach, we headed back to the hotel to clean up. We walked around a bit, had lunch, stopped at the farmer's market where Audrey decided to fall asleep while I was carrying her. The beach wears my kids out. Ashley wanted to go to the aquarium at Fort Fisher (I wanted to take a trolley around Wilmington, I was outvoted), so we loaded the van and headed out. The aquarium was great, and we got to drive through some more North Carolina beaches we had not been to yet - Carolina Beach and Kure Beach. On the way back, we stopped at a small ice cream shop in Carolina Beach (Ray and Ashley could eat ice cream ALL the time) and then got back to the hotel in time to find some place for dinner.

This is where it got a little interesting. We went to Front Street Brewery (great beer, great food, great prices), and on the walk there, Ray got something in his eye. After many attempts to rinse it out, whatever was in it just wasn't coming out. And then Audrey decided to stick a piece of a tortilla chip up her nose. Thankfully, it came out, and no, I have no idea what possessed her to do that.

Ray ended up going to an Urgent Care Sunday morning, and $235 later, the dirt was out of his eye. So much for it being a cheap weekend with not having to pay for a hotel room.

We packed up and headed to Topsail Beach on Sunday where the girls had more fun. After lunch, we headed back towards Raleigh and was back home by 3:30pm. Everyone was wiped, Ashley and Audrey both napped in the van on the way home.

This week is kind of crazy - I am attending a conference my office puts together in Greensboro Tuesday through Thursday. I am driving back and forth each day. Ashley has her kindergarten program Thursday night where the kindergartners sing some songs after the PTA meeting. And Ashley has a speaking part in one of the songs because they can "really use her strong voice this time" versus using her strong voice in the classroom where she gets in trouble for talking loudly. It was a nice way of saying "your daughter is loud, but this time, it comes in handy". Whatever works.