Mom's Visit: The Fun Half, Before "The Project" Began

My mom had planned to come and visit a couple of months ago, but she had to unexpectedly cancel her trip.   It was super sad, but luckily, she got to reschedule and come see us for a week in May instead!  Unfortunately, the North Carolina weather decided to aspire to emulate the kind of rainy-day forecast more typical of the North West the entire time she was here, which made our trip to the Outer Banks a bit more blustery than I'd envisioned.  We still had a great time, though.

We picked Chad up from work in Rocky Mount late Friday afternoon and headed for Kitty Hawk.  Kaden was begging to go to the beach, because we'd been talking about it for the last week, but the poor kid only lasted for about five minutes before he agreed it was too cold and we went back to the hotel room.

Saturday we spent the morning at the aquarium.  It was the perfect escape from the blustery wind that was making the beach unbearable, and Kaden LOVED it.  Seriously.  He was in Heaven.

 Here he is giving an alligator an ugga-mugga (Daniel Tiger-lingo for Eskimo kiss):

 He got to touch the sting rays swimming around in a hands-on exhibit.  I was so proud of him for just jumping in and doing this.  We didn't have to convince him at all.  This was a very un-Kaden-like display of bravery.

He even went back and did it later before we left.  That's how much he loved it!

They had a sea turtle exhibit where you could help "rescue" a plastic sea turtle, rehabilitate it, and release it back into the ocean.  He did this multiple times before we left.  It was so fun watching his little imagination at work.

Then we went to a presentation where one of the scientists let us meet a real life sea turtle, and he did such a great job paying attention.  He only got wiggly at the very end, and he even actively participated by answering the questions.  My mom bought him his own stuffed sea turtle at the end of our visit, and it's joined Tip Top and Ollie as an additional night time companion ever since.
   

We went to the Wright Brother's Memorial and saw a replica of their masterpiece.  It was right during Kaden's usual nap time, so he was in a killer good mood.  We didn't stay long, but at least we can say we've seen it.

On Sunday, we stopped off at two lighthouses before heading home and spent a few minutes walking along the beach when the sun decided to finally show up and made the day pleasant.

 

So this sums up the fun part of Mom's trip, before we went into full-scale project mode.  Stay tuned for that gem of a post.  Here's the teaser:  never attempt to paint a chevron accent wall in your toddler's room.  Never.  Ever.  Under any circumstances.