Ocean Isle - Days 1 & 2

We drove from Knoxville to Ocean Isle, NC on Saturday, June 4th for a week at the beach with Brian's family. His parents (Art & Cinda) rented a house on the beach that also had a pool. The house was actually a quad-plex and we had a 7 bedroom end unit. No one rented the other 3 units the week we were there so we had a the pool to ourselves the entire time.

Besides us and Brian's parents, his half-brother (Tony), Tony's wife (Tina), and their son (Dominic) and Brian's half-sister (Kristen) and her daughter (Maddie) were able to make it. This was our first time meeting Kristen and Maddie and we are so glad that we got to spend the week with them.

All the kids got along great. Dominic is 9 months older than Carter and Maddie turns 8 this week. Dominic and Carter loved following Maddie around and doing whatever she directed them to do. I think Carter listened better to Maddie than to me the whole week!

We left Knoxville around 7 am on Saturday. We drove to Wilmington first (which is about an hour from Ocean Isle) and dropped off Charlotte with my mom. We spent a couple of hours with her and then drove on to Ocean Isle. We got in around 7 pm and visited with everyone before getting the boys to bed. They had late bedtimes all week but have managed to get back on schedule now that we are home.

Brian and I took the single bedroom on the third floor and kept Rylan in our room. His crib was around a corner from the bed so we didn't disturb him. We kept him in our room since he still gets up a lot at night and we wanted to be able to get him before he woke up anyone else. Carter had one of the four bedrooms on the second floor.

On Sunday we were on the beach by 9 am. We had wonderful weather the entire week - no rain and just a few clouds. I was nervous about how Rylan was going to do on the beach. The first time we took Carter to the beach, he just wanted to eat the sand. Rylan though had no interest in putting sand in his mouth. He loved running his hands through it though and knocking down sand castles.

Rylan typically could sit in the sand for about an hour just playing with the sand and with our sand toys before he got bored.


Carter was a little scared of the ocean the first day and spent most of the morning in the sand.


But he quickly warmed up to the ocean and loved playing in the waves with Brian. He's so little though that Brian would have to hold on to him or the small waves would knock him down.

Rylan loved the ocean too. I'd hold him in the water, then lift him up some when a wave would come, and he would giggle every time.

After spending a few hours on the beach, we went to the pool for awhile. Then we had lunch and the kids took naps.

After dinner we took a walk on the beach. Carter and GG (Cinda) collected shells ...


Rylan got passed back and forth between me and Brian ...



Brian and Carter tried to find ghost crabs. After Brian stuck a stick down a hole to see how deep it was, Carter stuck a stick down every hole he saw ...


After our walk on the beach, the boys got baths and then Carter got to play with his cousins. Here's a picture of Carter, Maddie, and Dominic hanging out on the back porch before bed ...