Time to Dust This Off, Part 1

The real problem with not posting in a while is that when I do post, I have entirely too much to write about. You may want to go get a sandwich. This may take a while.

To start off with, my wife and I got back from vacation on Tuesday of this week. We went to Oak Island, North Carolina and stayed with my dad, his wife, and my brother and his family for 5 days in a rental house on the beach. I mean, literally on the beach. You walk out of the back door and you're looking at 2 dunes (to keep the really high tides away from the houses), 60 feet of sand and then 3000 miles of ocean. We had a blast. Here's a breakdown:

Thursday, August 30: Land at Wilmington International Airport at around 12 pm. We were supposed to get in by 10 am, but we missed our original flight. The airline was kind enough to put us on the next one for no additional charge. Ironically, that was the plane we wanted to be on any way, but it was $100 more when we were booking our flights. Yay for oversleeping.
It's kind of silly to call Wilmington's airport an international airport due to it only having 5 gates (as opposed to Atlanta's international airport, which has 191), but it was the nicest airport I've ever been in. Clean, spacious and lots of parking. We ate lunch after leaving the airport and headed out to the beach house. The first thing my wife and I did when we got there was run into the ocean. 5 minutes later we were headed back inside. I was stung by 3 or 4 jellyfish.
Jellyfish apparently move closer to land when there is sever weather over the ocean. There was severe weather over the ocean this past weekend. Treatment, as the hospital prescribed, consisted of rubbing sand on my leg for 20 minutes to get the barbs out, and then putting hot compresses on my leg. Scalding hot. For an hour. This was to take care of the burning and itching, which it did a fabulous job of until 2 days ago when my legs started itching as if I had a severe case of poison ivy.
My brother and his family arrived shortly after I raked my leg with sand and let my wife burn me with insanely hot wash cloths (God bless her, she really did a great job of taking care of me) and we helped him and his wife get their 4 kids and their stuff into the house. We had pizza for dinner and Steve (my brother) and I played a board game. Here are some links to the games he and I brought.

Friday, August 31: In spite of the previous day's shenanigans, I decided to brave the briny sea again. I mean, the odds of getting hit by a jellyfish 2 days in a row are pretty dismal, right?
10 minutes later we were rubbing sand on my other leg. After another hour of make-me-cry heat on said leg, I decided not to test the waters again. The rest of the day consisted of walking on the beach, a throw-seashells-at-the-sandcastle contest and more boardgames. For dinner we went to the Blue Water Point Restaurant. They have really excellent seafood.

Saturday, September 1: This was a fairly slow day. I went on a bike ride with my sister-in-law and nieces and one of my nephews while my wife and brother went into town for internet access. They had "responsibilities" or some such they had to take care of. I didn't pay much attention to what they had to do. I was on vacation. I also watched some tv and took a nap.
That night my wife gave a concert on the beach to which no one who said they would come, except the family, came. It was still awesome. She rocks. Check her out. She and I had a long, starlit walk on the beach after that, where we almost stepped on a dead fish. Ahh, quel romantique.

Sunday, September 2: The ocean has a funny effect on people. It...calls...to you, I think. Or maybe it's all that awe inspiring beauty. Or maybe I just was jealous of everyone else's ability to romp in the Atlantic while I, apparently, exude something that makes me some sort of culinary treat for jellyfish. Whatever it was, caution be damned! I was getting in that water and was going to have fun even if it killed me! Or stung me!
I was fortunate in that I didn't get stung again for the rest of the trip. I was unfortunate in that my body boarding skills were, how do you say...non-existent. The first wave I caught I did well on. Rode the board all the way to the beach. This served to increase my confidence in my "not there" abilities, so I continued with more gusto. The ocean laughs at gusto. I was rolled on my next 2 attempts and my back has the scars to prove it. The fourth time was the best. I got rolled, knocked over forward while trying to stand up, pulled back into the surf while trying to stand up again, fell over while trying to stand up and stepping on the board which acted like a banana in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, and finally falling over 3 or 4 times because I was laughing to hard at that point to get on my feet. I finally admitted defeat when, on the fifth try, my niece rolled over me after I had rolled again. Good times.
After that, I just played in the water and on the beach. That evening consisted of my wife making enchiladas for everyone for dinner (yummy) and more board games.

Monday, September 3: This was probably my favorite part of the vacation. This was the day that me, my brother, my dad, my 2 nephews and 1 of my nieces went to see the USS North Carolina Battleship Memorial. I had already seen it on a previous trip, but I enjoyed myself so much that I wanted to see it again. You basically do a self guided tour of about 80% of the ship, including getting into the 16 inch and 5 inch gun turrets, the bridge, part of the engine room and the entire main deck. They even have a working flak cannon on the deck that you can sit on and move. No ammunition, unfortunately.
The greatest part of the trip to the memorial this time, however, was my 3 year old nephew. He had so much fun that when we were getting ready to leave and my brother said it was time to go, he responded with "Go boat? Go boat?" He wanted to go back on the ship. After walking the whole thing. For 4 hours. He put the rest of us to shame.
We ate at a really good seafood place on the way back to the beach house and played more board games that night.

Tuesday, September 4: Time to go home. This was the first time I had spent more than 4 days away from home and had not wanted to return yet. Unfortunately, all things come to an end. We packed up the house, said goodbye to my brother and his family, and headed out. The first stop before the airport was actually further down the island. We went to take a quick look at the other rental properties down there because they are much bigger and next year we hope to have my sister and younger brother and their families out there. After that we went to eat at a burger place and then stopped at a Barnes and Noble to pick up a couple of sudoku books for the flight home. I am now thoroughly addicted to sudoku. It's like crack for the brain...which I guess is just like crack, when you think about it.
Anyway. Flew into nashville at about 8 pm, picked up our truck for $48 (long term parking is teh stupid. Don't do it), and went and got our dog from our friends. We were home by 9:30.

Overall we had a really, really good time, in spite of the attacks on my lower extremities, my back looking like my cat's scratching post, and the mild sunburn I got. I'm really looking forward to going again next year. Maybe I'll get bit by a shark. Sweet!

I'll post again in a few days about other happenings in my life. Specifically about this and this.