It's not a bird, and it's not superman

My vacation was great! A nice 3 day weekend was just what I needed. Friday morning I took it easy and got in a quick bike ride, then we met up with Lee and headed to the coast with the kids. Just me and Bigun (and 5 other dad/daughter pairs from our Indian Princess tribe) for a whole weekend at the beach.  Surf City NC is about 2.5 hours away from Raleigh and it's a very quaint little beach town on Topsail Island. We got there about 5 pm just in time to get unpacked and catch a few hours on the beach before dinner.

Made it!

Saturday will turn out to be one of the most epic days in history. EPIC! After breakfast, we got a long session in on the beach, where we got in the water. Bigun learned to ride a bogeyboard, and I was bodysurfing. There were some serious waves out there, like 3 foot swells.  She would basically get out about knee deep, put the board down, jump on it and let the wave crash over her head. She'd go forward about 5 feet before hitting the sand, and love every second of it.  Once I actually got her out deep enough to catch the wave as it was breaking and ride on top of it, and that was met with the following conversation:

Daddy that was awesome!  Wow!
Do you want to come out here and do it again? That won't be the last big wave you know.
No way!

That child cracks me up. We came in for lunch, then headed out for a special treat.

Hanging at the house after a fun day at the ocean

Nervous before the big ride!

It's a plane! And Bigun is on it!

you can barely see the plane

Bigun got in her first flight!  She has been begging me for months to take her somewhere by plane because she wants to try flying.  Kelley is incredibly scared to fly, so I had to get the kid in the air before ever telling her anything about this.  I sent her this last pic.

She absolutely loved being up in the air.  One of the other dads is a retired military pilot who decided to fly down to the coast in his 4 seat single prop plane. He offered to take all of the kids up if they wanted to go.  Bigun got to sit up front and even took the controls for a while! She actually got to fly the plane.  They stayed up about 30 minutes, only got about 500 ft in the air, and it was fantastic.  She was totally beside herself when she got down.

our little pilot in training!

After the flight, we took the girls to a marina where the water was calm to teach them how to standup paddleboard.  It was fun!  Bigun stayed on her knees to keep her balance low, and she is a seriously strong paddler.

I got to get her into some more watersports.  Really strong with the paddle.

After that it was back to the beach.  Time for me to really try to embarrass the girls, so I threw on the blue shimmer speedo with tiger stripes.  It really got the job done, they loved it!  Last year when we did this trip I wore the pink flowered square leg suit down to the beach, so I was trying to top it this year. I actually did the workout again too, but this time Michael and I talked one of the other dads into going too.  So the three of us ran 1.8 miles down the beach to a pier, then hopped into the ocean and swam back.  It took about an hour and a half. The swim was with the tide but was still one of the tougher swims I've had recently.  Pretty sore the next day!

Sunday we got in a few more hours on the beach, and finally I got the camera down there.

Stupid fuzzy lens. She has been on a real "save the sea turtles" campaign the last several days, even making signs and standing in the backyard screaming "save the sea turtles" at cars that drive by. So to find a real actual sea turtle nest was a real treat!

After getting home I snapped this one to try and show off the nice toasty sunburn I got

I don't think the lighting was right.  I got burned up pretty good, even though I kept putting on more sunscreen.  I started with 30 spf, then went to 50 and even some 100+ spf stuff, and still got burned.  Bigun?  Perfectly tanned.

As for the rest of the week, yea, not much there.  I stayed in the brace and took the aleve like clockwork. I walked 2.5 miles on Tuesday because I just couldn't take it anymore.  And Wednesday 8/28 is when I go back to the podiatrist to see if I can start running again.

So the week was crap but the 3 day weekend was totes amazeballs. Playing in the ocean, bogeyboarding, flying a plane, SUP'ing, and lots of eating and drinking.  We had such a wonderful time.