Topsail Day 4

Thursday we spent a lot of time playing in the sand.  There was a double red flag and law enforcement patrolling the beach to make sure no one went into the water.

 Ben and MV made Annie a mermaid tale.

 Ben built a sand race car.

 Thursday night we got to roast hot dogs and marshmallows on the fire.

Little girls with Jim.

Topsail Day 4

 After 36 hours of rain we were ready to get out of the trailer.  Even though it was still drizzling, we decided to ride our bikes to Flower Nose Lake.  I believe it's really called Campbell Lake.  We call it Flower Nose Lake because that's where Mollie Grace stuck a flower in her nose when she was about 3.

 After lunch the rain stopped completely and we decided to ride down to the beach.  The wind was blowing hard and pounded sand against your skin.  It was pretty uncomfortable.  Annie, in particular, didn't like it.

  The beach is a weird, eerie place immediately following a tropical storm.  The tide was high, the water was rough, and the sand was packed tightly.  John compared it to the surface of the moon.  You can tell by these pictures that there weren't too many people who ventured down right after the storm.  As the afternoon progressed, more people came down.

 We did a lot of walking up and down the beach.

Jim, Fran and the girls joined us in afternoon.  They rented a cabin Wednesday through Saturday.

 Ben's monkey sand castle.

 John and Jim grilled outside but the rain started back up and sent us inside.

S'Mores made in the microwave.

Topsail Day 2

And sometime in the night Monday, Tropical Storm Cindy blew in.  It rained for about 36 hours straight.  We played board games, put together puzzles, and went to the movies.  Cars 3 came out a few days earlier and Ben really wanted to see it.  We headed to the theater for the 1 p.m. showing only to find that it was sold out.  The movie theater was packed with beach goers who couldn't go to the beach.  We bought tickets for the next available show which was at 5:30 p.m.  We all really liked Cars 3.  

Topsail Day 1

 We left our house on Saturday and drove to the hunting camp where we keep our trailer.  We spent the night in the trailer and left Sunday morning headed to our favorite camping place -- Topsail Hill Reserve State Park.  It was a long drive.  We arrived Sunday evening and set up.  Monday morning we headed to the beach.  There was a tropical storm moving into the Gulf so we knew we needed to take advantage of the good weather on Monday.

 We didn't even go back to the trailer to eat lunch or for nap time.  I biked back to the trailer and packed a picnic lunch.

Blogger Fail

It has been an entire month since I last posted!  How has the time passed that quickly?  Do you know how many things we do in one month in the summer?  It may take a while to catch up.  We've been to the beach, Ben's played soccer, both girls' have taken swim lessons and on and on.  First I'll post a few random pictures taken before we went to the beach.

 See sawing in the the spray from the sprinkler while the garden was being watered.

 Ben had friends Graham and Grisham over to play.

Posing.

Ben

And what has Ben been doing?  Well baseball ended last Monday.  They ended the season with a win against the number one team that had beaten them twice.  

 Handing out end of season plaques to the coaches and balls for the players.

 Autographing balls.

And guess what?  Soccer never ends!  Started a new summer series of games tonight.  One game a week for six weeks.

 But below is what Ben has really been spending time on.  Creating stop motion races with his diecast cars.

Sewing and Park

 Cutting out the pattern for her first sewing project -- a dress for Rosie.

 I asked Mollie Grace what she wanted to do for her birthday and she chose lunch at Chickfila and playing at Shelby Farms. (These pics are taken with my phone because I forgot my camera.)

 Annie is only about six inches off the ground but she thinks she's doing something super big.

 Project number 2 -- A nightgown for Rosie.

She has also made Rosie a pair of pajama pants and two throw pillows for Ben.  We had some leftover M&M fabric from a Halloween costume a couple of years ago and we re-purposed a Kyle Busch t-shirt that he had outgrown but didn't want to get rid of.