Raleigh

We headed to North Carolina for the week to visit my life long best friend Toni and her family. This is always a trip that I love. Not only is it great to hang out with Toni, Matt and their adorable four kids but it a relaxing time. I love the easy going slow pace of NC, no traffic, no horn honking, everyone knows everyone, no tour buses cruising by with tons of people and cute downtowns.  Our plans were to show Rick around, play with the kids, relax and go to the beaches along the coast.

 

Our first day we showed Rick around Duke and all the other college campus' around. We loved Duke, the buildings were amazing. We then came home made dinner and played with the kids. After dinner we walked down to the new neighborhood Gelato cafe for some delicious Gelato.

The next day Toni and I went to the kids school to help out with their field day - games, fun and water all day while Rick spent a few hours working from the house. We then took Scarlett to get her ears pierced for her 6th birthday. We then  headed to the neighborhood pool for swimming. Of course Rick loved this. We played around in the pool with all the kids, went down the big waterslide, took underwater pictures and had lots of fun. After the swimming we had a pizza party for Scarlett's birthday. Toni's family joined us and we made Scarlett a beach cake which is what she wanted.

 

On Saturday we all headed to Wrightsville Beach. To my surprise the waves were pretty big and people were surfing. The last time I went to the beach on the east coast the water was as calm as a lake at dusk so I wasn't expecting to see California like conditions. Rick spent several hours in the water with Matt and the kids. They dug deep holes and built sandcastles. Rick smartened up this time and decided to bury the kids in the sand rather than letting them bury him in the sand. Sad for Rick, there was no wind for him to go kiteboarding. It would have been fun for him to show the kids his big kite.

 

On Sunday we went to a somewhat normal church service and I joined Toni in YW (she is the president) to see how a typical YW Sunday went - much different then our situation in Oakland.

On Monday Toni gave us a tour of downtown Raleigh. We took Win the youngest with us and visited a few museums. We went to The Pit for lunch. It was a great southern style BBQ joint. That week they were on Bobby Flay's smackdown for their ribs and won so of course we had to try their ribs. The food was great! We then headed to Locopops which is a place where they make funny flavored popsicles. This was right up our alley since we like to try random flavored popsicles in other countries when we are on vacation. I had a lavender plum popsicle which was good and Rick had a blueberries and cream which was great as well. We then headed to the lake which was about 5 minutes a way. We didn't go boating because it started to sprinkle, but we did take a little hike along the water with the whole family. However, we did get ticks and lots of them. That is the one thing I don't like about NC - ticks. I pulled four out of Rick and he pulled two out of me. The kids were filled with them as well.  That night we had a BBQ and invited some of Toni's family friends over. It was fun getting to know other people and experiencing their lives which are so different from ours. Some day we will get out of California, live in a neighborhood, have a family and friends and their kids over for BBQ dinners and lake trips.