As promised, a whole bunch of beach pictures. 

By the end of the week, we had great weather.  I was a little worn out, though, so the grandparents took the kiddos to the beach one afternoon without me while I took a nap or something equally nice.  The next day, Johnny was back, the weather was nice, so we spent a few hours on the beach.  The kids were ecstatic that the sand castle they had made the day before was still standing.  I was pretty impressed, too.  Thanks everyone else with our same private access to the beach!

 Everyone run to the ocean!

 Joy was very distressed that Daddy was swimming in the ocean.

 See, swimming in the ocean.  The ocean, people!

So, knowing no fear, Joy rushed in to save him.  Luckily, Johnny was mostly back in at that point.

 My in-laws taking their daily walk together.

This is what 32 weeks pregnant looks like.  That, or there's some weird bend in my straw-like shadow that I should get looked at . . . 

 Building a sand castle with Daddy. 

 Destroying the middle of the sand castle.

 Building some sort of retaining wall.  I was too far away to hear that conversation.

 The Captain jumping over waves.

 Beach race!

Vacation Number 2 - The Beach

So as a graduation present, Johnny's parents invited us to stay at a timeshare condo with them for a week in Atlantic Beach.  It was wonderful.  Johnny, of course, had to work.  He rented a car and drove back to our old stomping grounds in Virginia, but I got to hang out with the kids and the grandparents at the beach.  What could be better?  

I guess the title of this post is misleading since this was actually our third vacation this year.  It's just the second one in a row.  And it was only April, wow.  Don't worry, we're done traveling until after this next baby gets here.  Which is coming sooner than I'd like to think about.  

Anyway . . . we were really close to one of North Carolina's aquariums, so we had to go.  As you can see from the jackets, it was a bit chilly, but weather in the 60s isn't bad.  It was still warm enough to play at the beach, play at the vacation property (which had an indoor pool, so that made it easy), and explore around the neighboring towns.  

We brought our own dinners and ate really well.  I was super sick of eating out.  That being said, we did go out Saturday night when we drove it because it was pretty late, so we went to IHOP and breakfast for dinner is never a bad thing.  Sunday was General Conference, so we stayed in and I made a bunch of hair bows while I listened.  I think this was the first Conference since I've had kids that they were able to keep themselves entertained.  It was wonderful.  Granted, our internet connection was horrible, so we only got to watch Sunday Morning, but it was still great.  Monday we had to take Johnny to the local airport to rent a car, so we spent the rest of the day playing at the park, playing mini golf (The Captain's new favorite thing), and generally relaxing.  We went to the beach every day, of course, but we didn't always bust out all the toys on account of the chilly weather.  We also went to the aquarium, the fort, and historic part of the neighboring city, known for its pirates.  I may have bought some pirate hats for our dress up.  

Well, enough talking, here are some pictures:

The Captain wanted to take pictures on every statute.

Here's the frog.

On the Nature Hike that is part of the aquarium.
The kids loved the floating bridge over the lake that got our feet wet.

Petting the rays.  Joy's favorite thing.  She loved how soft they were.
Even though there were a few school groups there that day, the rays
really loved to be petted, and seemed to like Joy a lot.
She also liked petting the crabs in the tide pool area.

Chase the sharks!
We saw and talked to divers in the shark tank twice.

Joy was mad at me, I don't remember why, so during the second
divers' presentation, she walked behind me to brood by this fish
tank.  It's complicated as to why I didn't go chase her down.
We'll stalk this one up to advanced pregnancy.

The Captain -- turtle doctor extraordinaire.

The two turtle doctors and their patients.

Making sand castles with grandpa.

Up next: tons of beach pictures.

Johnny's a Master

So, a week after we got home from Europe/South Africa, we road tripped it to North Carolina.  Why?

 To see this.

And this.

And this. 

I didn't think Johnny's MBA graduation would be such a big deal for me, but it kind of felt like we were getting married again.  They did such a great job with the ceremony. Everything was very family friendly.  It was just a wonderful day.  

Well, there was some waiting before the ceremony.  

I caught this picture a few minutes before.  The kids are on my phones (my old one I keep around for just such occasions), and Johnny's parents are on their devices.  I obviously had to take pictures to keep myself occupied since my devices were taken.

 And those teddy bears the kids are holding, yeah, they were giving them out to all the kids on the way in.

I did say it was an awesome program, right?  

Well, we stayed afterwards and enjoyed the food at the reception.  Then we went to the student center so Johnny could buy some swag.  Joy fell asleep in the car, so Grandma stayed behind with her, and The Captain and I headed out to a garden nearby on campus to take some 5 year old pictures.  

He was awesome because he showed me his "moves" by which he meant poses.  He loved doing the shoot and really got into it.  I guess I've been doing this with him for awhile.  These were some of my favorites:

 

He was being an explorer.

The Captain's Birthday

So The Captain had a birthday the week between our trips.  It was fun and definitely kept us on our toes.  

These days, any birthday, or celebration at all, calls for balloons.  So we picked up a few. And decorated the house while The Captain was sleeping, as per his request.

Birthday Breakfast: blueberry wheat pancakes with strawberry topping, and cantaloupe.

As you can see above, he chose to wear his new Superman shirt.  He wanted a Lego themed party.  We saw the Lego Movie (awesome!), ate lunch at McDonalds with a play place, of course.  

Birthday dinner: the pizza was not entirely due to the lack of groceries.

Yes, we all had to wear birthday hats.

 Lego cake 

 Blowing out candles

 Everyone enjoyed the cake

On Monday, we went to Legoland. Joy wanted to build a house, so we helped her build one just for her . . . with two windows . . . and no door . . . he he he.

Lego driving lessons

 Enjoying the Lego DFW area.

I think he had a good birthday.

South Africa

So with the business side of the trip over, we flew down to Johannesburg for Johnny's school immersion weekend.  Since I was not included in the school stuff, I spent most of my time watching TV, catching up on laundry, wandering around the few blocks of shopping center where the hotel was located, enjoying the milkshake bar (yes, they actually made milkshakes for you.  It was awesome.), and ordering room service.  I got a mani-pedi, got to relax, and obviously took zero pictures.  

So we move on to Cape Town, which was the only vacation Johnny got the whole trip.  So we enjoyed ourselves.  Unfortunately, my careful observation of the weather on my phone did nothing to improve the weather once we got there.  It rained and was overcast and fairly chilly our whole time there.  So we didn't get to see Table Mountain, or Robben Island, or chill at the beach.  But we did take a bus tour our first day after walking to Camps Bay.  Through that, we learned about some awesome museums that we wanted to visit.  So we decided to visit 4 museums the next day.  

First the Bo-Kaap Museum, which sadly was not very well organized, but still contained some cool info about Muslim art, and the January 2 Carnival that is celebrated in the city every year.  

But it was located on this street:

Bo-Kaap

where no one ever forgets which house is theirs. It reminded me of a book we read with The Captain called Mr. Pine's Purple House.  Speaking of books, when we were at the Gold Museum, our next stop, we got the best souvenir ever, this book:

  

which unfolds to show you a 4000 year history of the world with each major power running in parallel, so you can see what was happening in China during the reign of the Caesars, and so on.  It might be the coolest book ever.  And it's available on Amazon, though we got a better deal on it.  

We also went to the Section 6 Museum, which is more of a memorial, and the Jewish Museum & Holocaust Museum, which were definitely the best structured museums.  We also walked through the Company Gardens at the government buildings, and went to the Green Street Market Square.  

For dinner, we went back to Camps Bay and stopped for some beach pictures.  

Due to the inclement weather and the whole driving-on-the-opposite-side-of-the-road thing, we decided not to rent a car and drive to the Cape on our last day.  So we went to the V&A Waterfront instead.

Behold Johnny was actually there.

And we encountered this guy in the ocean two minutes after the above picture was taken.  

That may have been when we decided to go to the aquarium.  

Feeding the native penguins.

The Rock Star Penguin

Feeding the sea turtle.  

We got there just in time to see them feed many animals.  And speaking of timing, this happened:

Not sure why animals like to bare their teeth when I'm around, but it makes for some great shots. 

This is what the beaches in Cape Town are full of.  The seaweed basically makes this really cool underwater jungle. 

Moray Eel

And some cool anemones to end.

It was a great vacation.  It was a long trip.  I was excited to get back home.  Our flight from Cape Town to Heathrow was not horrible, but was not very pleasant either.  For some reason, the flight attendant didn't like me.  It was weird since I had no abnormal interactions with him, nor was I a nuisance in any way.  But the flight back to DFW redeemed it since the flight attendant there was awesome.  He was funny and chatted with me about kids and pregnancy, and he made me eat another lunch, and gave me a banana and extra water and stuff.  It was great.  But not as great as when the kids got home and the swelling went down in my legs.

Up next: The Captain turns 5, and more travels.