Week With Van.... Day 2

I am sure you noticed that this post is happening on day 3.... raise your hand if you are surprised that I didn't blog last night. Yep, fell asleep with Van when I was reading him his story :)  With no delay, here is day 2.

We woke up at a much more reasonable 6:30. I knew it was going to be a better day when I walked in and Van said "HI! What are you doing?"  This means the normal, happy Van was back! I think waking up at 4:30 the day before in a panic put us both in a weird mood yesterday. Today ended up being our 4 of July celebration and many of Van's 1st's in Wilmington eateries.

We left the house around 9 to head to the beach (Fort Fisher is typically where we go), but on the way we stopped by the Carolina Beach Boardwalk to pick up Britt's Donuts - a must for anybody visiting Carolina Beach during the summer.  As we get out of the car and walk towards the store, Van paused, awe-struck, and whispered "Beautiful. Beautiful." - all the buildings on the boardwalk are painted a different bright color and he loved it! After a few minute wait for our donuts, we grabbed them and headed for the beach!

Let me tell ya.... this little guy is so much fun to take to the beach!!! He loved jumping the small waves that came at him then later he used his "super powers" against them! He would throw his spider web at them as they approached or karate chop and kick them as they hit him! He LOVED it!!  We stayed a couple of hours before we had to go - that's when the true experience occurred. 

I don't know if you can tell in the pictures, but we have this really awesome beach pop up tent. I think we bought it a couple of years ago when we wanted to begin taking Terra (the dog) with us to the beach more often. It is really cool. It's collapsable so it's easy to carry, it has pockets on the side to weigh it down with sand which makes it really easy to move and adjust the shade throughout the day, and it has an open bottom which means Van can still play in the sand and be in the shade. The thing is...I have never been the one to fold it up. Every time we go the beach Paul and I have a system - he folds it, while I get the case for it ready. Well, it was just me.  I am sure I was entertaining all the patrons of the beach that day as I struggled to get it folded up correctly. After several minutes, I smelled something funny (by funny I mean really really bad!)  Apparently, I had put one of the edged in dog poop when I set it up and since I had been messing with it for  several, several minutes, I had not only spread it on the tent, but also my hands.  At this point, I decided to throw in the towel. I got our bag, cooler, trash, and blanket together; then folded the tent enough to grab it and carry it, very awkwardly, off the beach. (Thank goodness Van was an angel during this time!)  As we are very slowly walking toward the car (an exhausted 3 year old and hot sand makes slow going) I feel something wet on my leg.  I am thinking that all the stuff squeezed against me, must be extra water from my bathing suit....but  a few minutes later it was still coming. I look down at it was white liquid; the milk from our donut earlier was leaking out of the trash bag down my left side. Since I have a tent ready to pop open at any second in my left hand a 3 year old on my right hand, there was nothing to do but keep walking.  Once we got to the car, Van climbed into his seat, I slammed the tent into the trunk, and we finally made it home where Van took a good 2.5 hour nap!!

Since this is already a long post I will quickly run through the rest of the day with pictures :)

Once Paul came home Van found his super powers and began to wrestle and attack him. (It's really the cutest thing! Van would reach into the air, grab his power, pull it to his stomach, make sure it went down to his feet, then hands, and then run and jump on Paul ) :D

Van had his first trip to Flaming Amy's

In order to avoid the craziness that is downtown Wilmington on July 4th, we went to Carolina Beach to enjoy fireworks a day early.  We grab ice cream at Squigley's and sat on their grass to enjoy the firework show! By the way, you have not seen a firework show until you have seen it with Van. This is the happiest, most excited child every. For the first 10-15 minutes of the show he was yelling, clapping, and cheering! He loved to yell out the colors of the fireworks as he saw them. He was the most excited child there by far! :)

I would say Day 2 was a great success!
(Ignoring  a few splinters from where he stepped on a pine-cone the day before)