Eli had quite a busy day today! We spent the morning at the beach, where he slept most of the time. We discovered that the stroller will roll pretty well on the damp sand near the water, so we walked up and down the beach with him a while while he slept in the stroller, safely hidden from the sun. The temperature at the beach was very nice this morning; not too hot.
We left the beach around noon and headed home. Eli was in a very good mood and very giggly all afternoon. Amy had to leave at 1:00 to go work at the Hilton for the rest of the afternoon/evening. Eli & I had the rest of the day to ourselves. At one point, he kept moving his arms and legs a lot (we’ve referred to these motions as his karate in the past). So I started doing karate chops with him. I was getting very animated with it, and he was laughing very hard at me! It was so much fun. It reminded me of the other day when we were in the grocery store and he just started laughing for no known reason.
After Eli had taken a nap, we went into town. I had to stop by the church for about 15 minutes and wrap up my prep work for Sunday. Then we stopped by Target for a short time. Eli was awake and in a good mood this whole time. We then went downtown for a while. We walked up and down the boardwalk and front street for a good couple hrs. There were lots of people around. The 4th of July is a busy day in downtown Wilmington. Mark Loudermilk eventually called me. He said he and the family were seated on the boardwalk just outside the Hilton (where Amy was working). So Eli & I went to join them. It worked out very well, because Amy was able to come out and join us for the fireworks show. Eli loved the fireworks! We covered his ears so he wouldn’t be too upset about the loud noise. He watched the fireworks the whole time. He wasn’t smiling and he wasn’t upset. He just seemed very interested in them. He didn’t really take his eyes off the sky the whole time. He just sat there and watched.
All in all, it was a really good day. It’s actually been a really good week! Amy, Eli & myself went to FUSE; the first summer camp that our church has designed and run ourselves. It was at Awanita Valley, a camp in the mountains. I went with the production team to setup our stage for the services they would have. We stayed in a little cabin with Mark & Emily Folland and their kids. It was nice to get to know them better.
I’ve included a few pictures. The first is of us watching fireworks tonight, and the others are from FUSE.
