Life is good at the beach

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, drink the wild air," and that's exactly what we did.

We had 3 1/2 glorious days at our favorite beach in North Carolina last week. It's a longer drive from here (7 hours!) but so worth it. Fort Fisher is a little Air Force recreation center on Kure (pronounced "Curie") beach. We found it when we lived in Cary, and it's sort of become "our" place. It's not fancy, but it's comfortable. The houses are little military-housing style units. 2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, a full kitchen, living room, and a washer and dryer. Even a garage and a little charcoal grill! There is a cafe on the base that sits right on the river and a rec center with ping pong and video games. The kids rented bikes and fishing poles, we took a canoe trip up the river, and we thoroughly enjoyed being away from "real life," taking long walks on the beach, and napping in the sun....

Ft Fisher lies between the Atlantic Ocean and the Cape Fear River, on a little stretch of land called Pleasure Island. Kure beach is not commercial--you have to drive 10 minutes into town to find a restaurant that's not on the base. There is no boardwalk, no tatoo parlors or 3/$10 t-shirts. It's just the sand, the ocean, and the pelicans. A little bit of peace in a crazy summer. Here are the pictures:having dinner on the porch of the Beach House Grill:We went looking for ghost crabs after dark. This year we remembered our flashlights! We also were delighted to discover lots of bioluminescent microorganisms buried in the sand. They were really cool-after the waves swept back into the ocean we would dig up the sand with our hands and we could see all these little tiny glowing dots. We had a successful day fishing: Joshua snagged 2 crabs and we caught three fish. Size does not matter, by the way.....it's the merely the fact that we caught them that counts!Hurricane Bill stayed far away from our little beach. We kept hearing about all the closed beaches and flood warnings but the only sign we had of any unrest in the ocean were the spectacularly big waves at high tide. We had lots of fun watching the surfers!
We made time to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant in town.
Dessert was at Squiggly's, a landmark institution in that part of the country. Jarrett and I are sporting our "I've been Squiggled" stickers.
One more picture before we left for home:

Some people bring home sea shells or hermit crabs from the beach, but not us!! Take a look at our newest family member: Kure. He is approx. 4 weeks old and we are having lots of fun bottle-feeding him and snuggling......

Tomorrow is Alyson and Nick's first day of school. Thank goodness we have those beach memories to dream of when the alarm goes off at 5:30!