2009 Vacation: Day 7

I posted up about yesterday's trials and tribulations related to Marney losing one of her butt teeth. Well, lo and behold, when she woke up this morning, the tooth fairy somehow knew that we were in Nags Head and left her a golden dollar! You know what makes this even more special? It's also her birthday today!



Fairly early today, her Nana and Popo made a video call on the Skype and she talked to them for about thirty minutes.



Instead of a birthday cake, she chose to confetti/vanilla cupcakes with confetti sprinkles. So she and I got to work making the cupcakes just after lunch.



Look at how deftly I can spoon the batter into the paper cups! I was French-trained, you know.



Of course the best part of making cupcakes is eating the batter. Raw egg, salmonella be damned! Who doesn't like eating raw batter? It's awesome!



While we were making the cupcakes, Kiki was sculpting boats out of paper. These may look like scraps of paper glued together, but she actually got really intricate in cutting different objects to include in the boat.



Because it was her birthday, Marney got to pick what big activity we were doing today. She picked sledding on the sand dunes. Because of my surgery and Connor's condition, he and I didn't go. Because we were staying home, we decided to keep Max and Jack home for a nap.

It has been below freezing all day today, and with the windchill it was about 5 degrees. So before they left for sledding, everyone had to get bundled up.



Sledding is available on the sand dunes at Jockey's Ridge, a state park. When they got there, they went into the visitor's center first which had a bunch of really cool hands-on displays about the dunes and wildlife.



Of course, it's difficult to get hands-on when your hands are bundled up in giant gloves or mittens.



Sleds in hand, they bravely decided to leave the warmth and safety of the visitor's center. Now they were all alone on the cold, unforgiving tundra of the North Carolina desert.



They had to hike about 20 minutes to get out to the dunes.



When you see all the trees and shrubs, you forget that these barrier islands are nothing more than loose beach sand that piles up over the centuries. But when you get out on the dunes, you feel like your in some bizarro-world cold version of the Sahara.



Now that's a desert!



At the top of one of the largest dunes, there was a "tree" made of christmas lights. That must be one large extension cord.



There was a lot of standing water between the dunes, and all of it was frozen over.



The kids wanted to jump out and try skating on it, but only the very top was frozen, so this wasn't going to be the day they tried ice hockey for the first time.



Then it was time for sledding.



They went to this smaller hill because the wind wasn't quite as strong (and thus not blowing in their eyes) on top of the main hill (with the christmas tree) it was a veritable sandstorm and everyone's eyes were stinging from the sand flying around.



But even at this location, the sand was still getting into everything.



Finally back home, I went outside to supervise while they all warmed up in the hot tub. As you can see, I was bundled up because i wasn't going to be in the tub.



It was so cold that as the water would drip down the side of the hot tub, it would freeze into icicles at the bottom.



After getting "re-heated," it was time to frost the cupcakes.



Aha! Cupcakes with funfetti for everyone!



Best. Birthday. Ever.

2009 Vacation: Day 6.5

As I alluded to in my previous post, Marney had a loose tooth-- her "Butt" tooth (she thinks it's butt tooth instead of buck tooth). She tried forever to pull it herself, but whenever it started hurting, she'd quit.



So she decided to recruit my help:



But, of course, when I try-- it really, really hurts.



So she went back to trying herself, but without any success.



So she finally decided to just grit through the pain and have me do it again.



VICTORY IS MINE!



Someone's about to get a dollar richer.



Not much going on last night. Little kids went to bed and older kids watched The Grudge.

2009 Vacation: Day 6

Jen went to the grocery store, so things were slow around the house this morning. Ava decided to try his hand at drawing cartoon animals (they have a book for it):



The seas were rough, which is while it was more surprising that we saw a fishing boat so close to the shore. We'd been looking at some of the ones on the horizon through the telescope, but this one was so close to the house, we got this shot of it with our camera:



This afternoon we went letterboxing. For those that don't know, a full description of it can be found here. The short story is that people hide letterboxes in different places and leave instructions for finding them on the internet. As letterboxers, we have a journal and a stamp with our family insignia on it (our name is 100 Toes- so we have a stamp with two feet on it). When you find a letterbox, it also has a stamp and journal in it-- so you two things: (1) stamp the letterboxes journal with your stamp and give the date and city that you're from; and (2) stamp your journal with the letterboxes stamp and put the date and location of the letterbox. And that's it! If you know anything about geocaching-- it's the old school version of that.

Here we are searching for our first letterbox. Did I mention it was only 36 degrees with a strong wind? It was cold.



Hey! We found it!



Here I am leaving our stamp in the letterbox's journal-- my in-laws just gave us this new "feet" stamp for christmas and it's awesome.



The second one was hidden behind the stairs of this beach access point:



And here I am, once again, leaving our information in the journal. I'm laughing because while I'm doing this because Max is wailing at the top of his lungs to get out of his car seat, and Marney is crying because she didn't find the letterbox. It was a crazy cacophony of cries in the van.



Here's the stamps for the two letterboxes we found- the Run Run and the Legend of Nags Head:



We went searching for three more on different hiking trails, but couldn't find any of the letterboxes. After the third one wasn't where it was supposed to be, we figured out that the instructions were several years out of date. So, for instance, on one of them, the letterbox was hidden at the intersection of the two dead trees leaning together. Well we found the trees, but they weren't leaning together- they'd collapsed to the ground-- and there was no letterbox to be found. But it was cool even if we didn't find the letterboxes because we got to hike on some cool trails.



You can't see it as well in the above picture as you can in this next one, but these trails were all on sand dunes. So there's all these giant pine trees and the floor of the forest is completely covered in pine needles, but if you brush the needles aside, you're looking at sand. It was the most interesting terrain we've ever hiked on. Very spongy and slippery.



Gabe, who's obsessed with mushrooms, found this one on the first hike we took. It's stem had the consistency and appearance of a kitchen sponge. He was disappointed that we didn't bring his mushroom identification book with us on the trip (yes- he has one).



We also found this cool stagnant pond in the middle of the forest. The kids loved throwing pine cones into it because the algae was so thick that it didn't splash right. It was like throwing stuff into snot.



The coolest part of the hike was this cemetery we found on our second hike! It was an old family graveyard for the Tillet family (it was spelled differently for different members of the family):



The most recent person to be buried in the graveyard was Harriett Tillette, who died in 1955. But the oldest one was Capt. Thomas Tillett. I decided that we needed to show the proper reverence that the good captain would want from people visiting his grave.



Of course, he died in 1827, so he probably thinks that the camera is a magical device that traps peoples souls. But how cool is it that we're visiting his grave 181 years after he died? Jen went on the internet and found out that he was a ship's captain and died at sea. Awesome. Captain Thomas Tillett, we salute you!



And on the way back from the second hike, we found something almost as freaky as the 181 year old grave-- THE ULTIMATE CHRISTMAS HOUSE! No kidding. These people have the biggest most elaborate Christmas decorations we've ever seen. In the following picture you can see they have "Peace on Earth" on their roof- on the roof of their lower level, they had "Merry Christmas Lives!" in the same sized letters. I guess we know who are Glen Beck fans.



Yes. The following picture is of a carousel with snowmen, penguins and polar bears riding it. I'm fairly certain that at night, it actually operates.



But let's not be too flippant here. These folks are obviously very serious about Christmas. It's clearly not all about crass commercialism and hollow Hallmark card sentiments. These people remember what Christmas is all about-- Santa kneeling before baby Jesus:



And don't forget the polar bear and penguin jamboree!



They also have their shed decorated! See that Santa with his reindeer? They're on pulleys! They actually fly!



And finally, may I present to you.... Noah's ark:



In the Gospel of Ling-Ling it is written, "And lo, the Gigantic Beagle will leave massive poops on the deck of your ark, Noah. But lest ye suffer the wrath of the Lord, ye shall scoop up the gigantic poops and dispose of them properly in gigantic grocery bags."



And while I was posting this update, Marney was in the process of pulling out her front tooth-- which, of course, has all been captured on film. I'll post up more about our antics with that later.

2009 Vacation: Day 5.5

Jen slept until 4:30 and the kids played quietly until then. We ate a delicious dinner of grilled cheese and ramen (this is quickly becoming one of my favorite dinners), and then settled down to play games. We were playing a zombie apocalypse board game that the little girls couldn't play, so instead Marney decided to polish the shells they found earlier. She did a good job of cleaning them up and they looked pretty nice, even the broken ones:



Connor, Mason, Ava, Gabe and I sat down to play Last Night on Earth a cool board game where one of the players plays a horde of shambling zombies and the others play the heroes trying to survive through the night.



We had a really, really fun time playing this game. The kids eventually won their goal by killing 15 zombies before the sun set-- but it was close. Even though Mason's character got eaten by zombies before the game ended, he was very happy with the result because before that happened he killed seven of the zombies with a baseball bat. There's not a 12 year old in the world that could want more than that.



That's it for tonight. Tomorrow Jen's going to the grocery store and then we're letterboxing all afternoon.

2009 Vacation: Day 5

Jen woke up with Max and Jack at 5:30, but everyone else slept in. I didn't wake up until 8:30- which is probably the latest I've slept in for years. We're basically having a lazy day where we do nothing and just play games. But there were some things that couldn't be put off another day. For example- giving the littlest boys a bath:



Sitting in a bathtub that big, they must have thought we hit the lottery!



After lunch (leftovers from last night's feast), Jen took Ava, Gabe, Marney and Kiki for a walk on the beach to look for shells:



The rain yesterday brought a cold front in. So while yesterday it was in the high 50s, it's in the mid to high 30s today... WAY colder. And the wind was tearing down the beach.



Of course, that didn't stop the kids from playing the Get As Close To The Water Without Getting Wet game.



I don't know if I posted a good shot of this before, but this is a view of our gazebo and walkway up to the house from the beach itself:



The kids had a good time, but ultimately concluded that they should have worn something warmer than pajama pants for their shell quest.



After that, it was more general laziness. I watched Auburn nearly choke and lose their bowl game to Northwestern (but won in the end-- thank God, I couldn't stand the thought of Auburn giving Northwestern their first bowl win since 1949), and the kids played Jenga:



Jen's taking a nap and the kids are either reading or watching inane television on the Disney Channel (seriously- could Sonny With a Chance be any worse? I suppose it could be Hannah Montana, but that's only marginally more idiotic). So far it's been a good "recharge" day.

Connor: I am the champ

Hey toes guess what today after six days of trying and failing I am finaly the champ of Lost Worlds.  I had to study it for a long time.  Yesterday gabe and I had come up with two plans two defeat Daddio.  It was just a few years ago that I learned how to play Lost Worlds.  Ever since then I had attempted to beat Daddio at his own game.  Now that I have won I am going to relax today.

Mommio: Last Year's Resolutions

Last year on our Ruidoso vacation we taught the kids what resolutions are and came up with some for each person.  Last night we went over the list and here is how we did, the ones that have been accomplished are in blue:

Jack: Learn To Walk

Max: Learn To Sing ABC's

Kiki: Learn To Write Name

Marney: Grow Out Hair

Gabe: Clean Under Max's Bed, Stop Hurting People, Keep Max And Jack's Blankets Picked Up

Avery: Keep Room Clean, Learn How To Do The Daily Girl Alone

Mason: Spend Less Time On Electronics And More Time With The Family

Connor: Spend Less Time On The DS And More Time With The Family, Spend Less Time Alone, Improve On Math

Mommio: Paint All Four Bedrooms, Write More Books

Daddio: Finish Reading Books He Has, Ride Bike 3 Times A Week, Weigh Less