Carolina Beach

We took advantage of a holiday weekend for dad (Columbus day - "thank goodness" for our imperialistic beginnings...) and headed to the beach with our great friends Jen, Daniel and their girls Ellen and Arianna. On the drive down, I sat in the back seat with Alder for a couple of hours to ward off the crying by talking to him and occassionally letting him suck on my pinky. Well, during one of these sucklings I felt a little tooth! Yes, Alder has officially cut a tooth on the bottom right! I was sure last week that he must be teething due to the excessive drool, chewing on fists and fingers, runny nose, a bit stinkier poops and his mildly fussy nature. I looked in Jason's baby book and found that he too cut a tooth at 4.5 months and read somewhere that the timing of teething is pretty genetic. Yeah for a mom's intuition! I wish I could post a photo of his little toothy, but it is not yet visible enough for a camera. Soon.

Ok, so we arrived at the beach Friday evening to our wonderful rental beach house. We struggled with the idea of camping, then cheap motel, and then Daniel found this great 2 bedroom beach house that was more affordable than most of the other motels and condos. Needless to say we were expecting a dump, but it was really great and not a dump at all. The living area and kitchen were spacious and clean and the front porch was huge. We were surrounded by other houses and condos, but it was the off season so it was very quiet. Plus we were one row of buildings and a small, quiet street from the sand. The beach was never crowded and the weather was perfect. One day was kinda overcast so we went to the aquarium at Fort Fisher...not highly recommended, but ok. Otherwise we spent the majority of our time on the beach, enjoying the basic things that make the beach the beach. We had a blast playing in the sand and body surfing. The water temp was perfect - it felt great to get in and to get out and then to get back in again... The water was also very rough and thus lots of fun for the adults. Jason and I traded off with Alder during nap times - he is still too young to really hang out on the beach with us, especially considering we did not have an umbrella. But, he fared well in the carrier for small blocks of time.


When awake and not on the beach, he enjoyed being entertained by the maidens of Alder smiles. Ellen and Arianna were very good at getting him to forget sore gums. These girls are only 16 months apart (currently 6 and 4.5+) and so well behaved. Jason and I took diligent mental notes as to how to be excellent parents from our veteran friends. Their girls are so smart and such a pleasure to be around.
Besides being great parents and awesome friends, Jen and Daniel reminded us of how good it is to eat copious amounts of roasted garlic. We had forgotten this through pregnancy and early breastfeeding, but are now back at it in full force.

I (dad) also recall that I made some comments to random people before our trip about how this might be our first vacation that might not turn out to actually feel like a vacation, due to the 'work' that having an infant with us would entail. However, I was quite mistaken . Such vacations are a beautiful balance: parenting during the day, and then some fun adult recreating and relaxing after the little ones are put to bed. We had a great time every night hanging out on the porch (no photos of this). On the last night Jen and Daniel introduced us to The Office, a TV show that I think is in its 4th or so season, but we are behind a bit on TV I guess. But we might be hooked now and we laughed like children watching the entire first season.

It was a bummer to say goodbye after three days of fun with friends that feel like family. Hopefully this can become an annual tradition. Here we are before parting ways on the porch of our Carolina Beach Chalet! Thanks guys for a great time! We love you.