Kure Beach Trip Day #1: First Fish from the Surf

 We drove down to Kure Beach on Saturday, for our first ever entire week at the beach. Online learning is horrible, but it does let you be a little more mobile. We decided to take advantage of the opportunity this year to do our work and school from the seaside. I love the beach this time of year--when the water is still warm but it's not so hot out anymore.

Since we couldn't check in to our condo until afternoon, we stopped at Carolina Beach State Park to play for a while. Simon of course immediately started catching sand crabs.

I was just glad to finally be there. I hate all the packing and preparation, but it always pays off in the end.

Around 3:00 we could check in to our ocean-front condo. Here is the view from the master bedroom.

I took a picture of the living/dining room before we trashed the place with all our junk.

Then we headed down to the sand for a bit before supper.

Simon wanted to try surf fishing right away of course. And, he had some great beginner's luck!

Banana peppers

 

One thing about being home so much is the kids help with food sometimes.

Simon really likes to cut things up, so whatever you give him it will end up in bite-sized pieces.

Faces in unusual places

 Alice sharpied some bananas again...

And this is an old wasp nest outside the upstairs hall bathroom. A spider lives in it now. I think it looks like a face.

Catching Catfish

 The poor fish don't stand a chance.

Simon Burrito

 Simon goes a bit wild right before bed every night.

Online "learning"

 Here we are, one month into the school year.  We have mostly settled into a routine as the kids have gotten the hang of online learning. Alice still has the occasional breakdown/tantrum when we have the ill-fated confluence of low blood sugar and technology difficulties. Simon still zones out for most of his lessons and can't wait to get back down to the pond as soon as he can.

Fire Pit Progress: 5 months

 

The end is near! He just has to create a few more pieces of the puzzle.

Fish & Forts

 He's quite content playing outside as much as possible.

Alice and Izzy at Umstead

 Natasha invited us for a hike at Umstead this morning. Simon wanted to fish instead, so he didn't come, which was actually kind of nice because Alice didn't have to fight with him, and we could hike at a quicker pace with far less whining.

It was a beautiful day for a hike--with the first taste of cool fall weather!

Bass and Catfish

 Simon catches lots of sunfish and bluegills, but it's always very exciting when he catches a bass or catfish. I'm started to wonder if he's just catching the same fish over and over?

Simon took a picture of Zac holding his catfish because it allegedly bit Simon when he tried to hold it by the mouth.

Found Objects

 I noticed Simon had neatly arranged his workbench in the garage. I asked him about it and he said it was all the things he's found. He told me about each thing and where it was found, but uh, I forget everything.

Creek Fishing at Umstead

 When I took the kids to the creek at Umstead a while back, Simon noticed a little sunfish in one of the deeper pools. So when I said we were going to Umstead today, he insisted on bringing his fishing rod so he could catch it. We went to that exact spot, but the creek was much higher from the recent rain. He only fished a minute there, and I helped him realize his bait was way too big for such a small fish, so we went down the creek a bit looking for worms. He found some, and fished quite persistently for an hour or two, mostly just getting nibbles from bait-stealing fish.

FINALLY he caught a sunfish, which he really liked since this one had a reddish tail, which he hadn't seen before on the gazillion sunfish he catches in our pond.

Obstacles

 As if we don't have enough obstacles in life right now, the kids this morning worked together to create an obstacle course that Zac and I had to traverse. The good thing is they work together and seem really happy making it. The other good thing is we make them clean it all up themselves, which kills some time.

Stick ball

 I heard a lot of screaming outside my window when I was teaching class today, so I looked out and saw my kids playing stick ball with each other during their recess. 

(Think about how much the sentence above shouldn't make any sense... But six months into the pandemic with schools still closed, here we are.)

My daily commute still just consists of my 3-mile round trip greenway walk. That's the only good thing about this whole mess.

Reflections

 This is my artsy photo from today. I often do a little work on my chromebook at the dining room table in the afternoons so I can supervise the kids.

Forest Fort

 Zac took the kids on an adventure walk up behind the creek after the rain today, and they came across this pretty impressive fort that someone is building in the woods. The kids were thrilled!

Tiny Hook Minnow Fishing

 Zac ordered the tiniest hooks ever, so the kids could go minnow fishing with hooks for a lark. Since fishing it the main activity around here, I guess we have to mix it up sometimes.

The Great Labor Day Camping Trip 2020

On Labor Day weekend, we had our 4th annual campout, which thankfully did not get cancelled by Covid. We had fewer families than our peak last year, but the core participants were there: Us, Chris and Lukas, Jess and Anna, Robyn and Franklin and Oscar and Felix and Xavier. Plus, as a bonus, Lindsey and Brent and Grayson and Brie drove down from Virginia to join us.  I love this event because technically I am the organizer and so it is my contribution, but all I do is send an email reminding everyone to reserve their campsites and we all show up and do our thing. It's the ideal ratio of minimal effort for maximum reward.

We continued our excellent luck of near-perfect weather.

(Note: These pictures are in reverse order because that's how they uploaded and it was too much work to rearrange them.)

The only annoying thing was that because the beaches were closed, we had a lot more squatters than normal invading our lake-front property. See all those people in the background? Not our people.

On the first night, we had an amazing red (nearly) full moon rise over the lake. Simon was night fishing while Alice and Grayson were night reading.