U.S.S. North Carolina

This past weekend, while Andrew was helping a friend move; the children and I went to visit my parents and celebrate Ceilidh's birthday. I haven't mentioned that my 'baby' will be SEVEN in 3 days!!!! We had a great time of mexican cuisine, a playground, and frozen yogurt! It was nice to spend  some unstructured free time with my parents and the kids. Thanks for her sweet gifts, mom and dad!

Granddaddy has lots of fun toys! ;)

After that fun trip, we loaded up with Daddy this time and headed to Wilmington for the day. We knew the U.S.S. North Carolina would be a huge hit with everyone, especially Graeme. We obviously had been talking to them about the battleship, but I don't think any of them realized how big it would be. When we drove up, their mouths dropped. Literally dropped open. HA Graeme was so excited his little eyes started to water. At this point, I would have driven half way across the U.S. for him to experience this! ;) We walked, and climbed, and walked, and climbed some more all over that ship. I have been before, but didn't remember any of it. I enjoyed it just as much as they did. We were all pooped after the self-guided tour, so we went across the waterfront and enjoyed some lunch. We decided to take the ferry across to Southport and went out to Oak Island to get our feet wet for a few minutes. The first beach sighting of 2014 was a glorious sight! Oh, how I love the beach!! We talk about moving to South port about once a week.  I just might get back to my beach roots one of these days. ;) We had a rough first 30 minutes or so of the drive back due to extreme exhaustion. After a few cuties konked completely out (like gaping mouths and drool involved, HA) it was smooth sailing all the way home. I love making memories with our little clan. I hope we never stop! 

Oak Island, May 2014

Fort Fisher Ferry

The actual flag that flew on the ship during war time

We actually got to climb inside the operating area for those huge guns. Can we say, tight squeeze?! It was pretty cool though!

Barbershop

I had to send this to my brother. HA 

Dental care in the middle of the ocean, anyone? ;)

Ceilidh thought this was SO cool. You could still move the guns side to side, and up and down using the crank shafts next to the seats. Not pictured is an identical seat on the other side where the two men had to work in unison to move the guns.