Ocean Isle - Day 3

Monday, June 6th was Brian's 33rd birthday. We had a lot more fun on that day than we did on our anniversary (June 4th) which was spent driving with two little ones for 10 hours. They actually did really well on the drive to the beach. We got new DVD players for the car before this trip. We set one up for each kid. Carter watched 6 movies during the drive and was content the whole drive. Rylan occasionally paid attention to the movies and only fussed occasionally. There were a few times I crawled in the back with the boys to try to calm Rylan down even though there's not enough room between the carseats for me to sit facing forward (I have to sit sort of sideways because my hips don't fit).

Anyway, on Monday we decided to go to the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher, which is in Wilmington (Kure Beach, actually). To get there we drove up to Southport and then took the ferry from Southport to Fort Fisher. The ride is about 30 minutes and crosses the Cape Fear River.


Birds follow the ferry because people always throw food to them. Someone shared some bread with us and we joined in.


Rylan hanging out with GG on the upper deck ...


Carter enjoyed ever bit of the ferry ride.


We went straight to the aquarium after getting of the ferry.

One of the alligators was hanging out at the front of the tank so I tried to get Carter to pose with it for a picture ...


Carter refused to touch the horseshoe crabs and starfish in the touch-tank. But he did enjoy looking at them up close ...


Checking out the sharks, rays, and other fish in the large tank ...



Carter's favorite were the giant spiny lobsters ...


We tried to get a picture of all the kids outside of the aquarium but the mosquitoes attacked them immediately and this was the best picture I got ...


After the aquarium we went to a local seafood restaurant for lunch called Bowman's at The Beach. Then we headed back to the beach house but this time drove through Wilmington to get back to Ocean Isle instead of taking the ferry.

The boys both took a nap in the car and so we went down to the beach when we got to the house. Our routine every time we went down to the beach was to play in the sand for about an hour and then go in the ocean to get some of the sand off.


"This is so much fun!"


That night we celebrated birthdays. That day was Brian's, Maddie's is June 17th, and Rylan's is June 28th.

Rylan loved his presents from GG and Papa Art. He especially loved banging on this wrapped one!




We had cupcakes but I decided to hold off on Rylan getting his first cupcake until his party at our house. He did get a couple of really small bites of mine though.