Lost Teeth and Moon Jellies

Yesterday was another rainy day here in OBX...We decided to venture down to Hatteras with Ross, Rita and Amelia to see the Graveyard of the Atlantic Shipwreck Museum. It was about an hour and 15 minute drive with beautiful scenery, even in the rain. We were surprised by how small the museum was...it was literally two rooms and a gift shop. Not quite what we were expecting, but it was such a nice drive that it didn't really matter...

We stayed in Hatteras for a while longer and had appetizers at Teach's Lair to tide us over until dinnertime. Then we headed back north to Nag's Head.

Here are Fred and Aidan walking out to check out the beach in Hatteras before we had our appetizers.
Aidan spent half the day torturing me with his loose top front tooth. He kept pushing it so it was sticking out of his mouth when his mouth was closed or wiggling it and telling me to look. I am amazed at how squeamish I am about something as normal as a loose tooth, but it's weird when it's on YOUR kid! He decided he was going to let it fall out on its own, though, and he did.


Aidan woke me up at 7:30 this morning, shouting, "Mom, look what happened during the night!" carrying his tooth in hand. I asked him if he pulled it out, and he said that, no, it was laying on his mattress when he woke up this morning.


So, here is Aidan's new smile from first thing this morning, bedhead and all!

THEN, our day at the beach began with AMELIA losing a tooth after biting into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich! Boy, is the tooth fairy EVER going to be BUSY tonight!


Today was the most beautiful beach day we've had yet. Hurricane Bertha was giving us her best, although from quite far off. The waves were HUGE, and too scary to let the boys boogie board. But we had fun jumping around in them and looking for shells and other interesting things on the beach.


Boy, did we find some interesting things! Here is a jellyfish we found. It had tentacles attached, so Fred carried it off somewhere and buried it. I'm not sure that's what you're SUPPOSED to do with a jellyfish, but who am I to argue? Then, we found some MORE jellyfish, this time without tentacles...it was starting to look as though a few women had lost their silicone implants!
See what I mean?

Anyway, we were starting to get worried that the kids shouldn't be in the water at all, until a woman came walking over with her kids, who had a whole net FULL of these weird jellyfish. She told us they were called Moon Jellies and could not sting you because they do not have tentacles like the other jellyfish. Aidan and Colin had lots of fun carrying their invisible pets around in a bucket of water for the afternoon!


Right after I snapped the following picture, I saw two dolphins jump out of the water, pretty close to shore! It was amazing! Apparently they enjoyed playing in the big waves Bertha was bringing in, too! I wish I could have gotten a picture of them, but they were only up for a split second and then they were gone.
Even the crabs were out in force! The big ones kept getting washed ashore, and were running all over the place. Here is a very angry one that some other boys were teasing:
We've had a really fun vacation, and we have a long drive home tomorrow, but we're looking forward to getting home.