Thanksgiving Weekend Continued....

Thursday after dinner Lori was looking at the ads in the paper for black Friday.  There were some things she wanted at Wal-Mart and the sales started at midnight.  She had never been to Wal-Mart on black Friday.  So we decided to stay up and go over around 11:30.  When we arrived there was not one parking space in the whole parking lot.  We had to go down to the other stores in the shopping center to get a parking space.  The store was packed, turns out people could go through the store and get the midnight specials ahead of time but could not check out till 12:00.  I was so proud of Lori, she just made her way around and got what she wanted. The crowds didn't seem to bother her.  There was only one thing they were sold out of.  It took us about 45 minutes to check out. That was actually the smoothest I've seen it go on Black Friday at Wal-Mart.

Friday we woke up to rain off and on throughout the morning.  We were going to take Alex to Mike's Farm http://www.mikesfarm.com/ to eat dinner and see the Christmas lights.  We decided if it rains to long it would be to messy to go there since most of the things are outside.  We decided to see if the Crab Shack was open to get a good seafood lunch.  It turns out they are closed for the season so we decided to go to the shopping center where Rucker John's restaurant is https://www.ruckerjohns.com  This is one of my favorite places to go to on Emerald Isle.  Turn's out this is now one of my son's favorite places.  He had a grilled fish sandwich and he said it was one of the best he has eaten.  Lori got a Cajun Shrimp wrap and really liked it.  Greg and I got the Shrimp BLT sandwich which was excellent.  We also ordered their crab dip which is really good.  We then walked around some of the shops.  We didn't get to go in all of the stores but I'm sure we will be going back there when they come to visit again.  Before we left we went to Andy's for some frozen custard.

Alex at Rucker John's

Emerald Isle Shopping

We decided since we would not be able to go to Mike's farm to see the lights, we would stop in Swansboro which was on the way home to see the Flotilla.  Well because of the rain it was canceled till Saturday night. So we walked around the shops a little.  The shops are in the Historical part of Swansboro and by the water so it is neat just to walk around. The stores are not usually open late but because they were expecting a crowd  to be there for the Flotilla they stayed opened.  Even though it was canceled some of the stores still stayed opened.

Saturday when we woke up and after breakfast we decided to take Alex to see the beach before he went home. 

 

Alex had some much fun collecting sea shells.  He wanted to take some home to his school teachers.

Then on the way home from the beach Alex noticed the store with the big shark outside.  We stopped so he could have his picture taken with the shark.

Alex sitting on the shark

Alex's teacher told his parents that he is really into science.  So when we got home we told him we were going out back to do an experiment with him.  We had taken a bottle of soda (diet works best) and dropped Mentos mints into it.  It's really cool the way it shoots up out of the bottle.  We had tried it with just a few mints but then we found a Geyser Tube at one of the shops we were at.  You set the tube on top of the bottle and it holds seven mints.  Once this is done you pull the string so they all fall down at once.  We couldn't believe how high the soda went up, Alex thought this was so cool.  The picture I have of it going way up you can't see because it was in line with a tree behind it so all you see in the picture is the tree.  I do have other pictures because we did it several times.

Alex and Grandpa

 

This was really fun, it you want more information on this tube go to:

http://www.stevespangler.com/category/mentos-experiment/  

Well it was then time for Alex to go home.  It's always hard for me to see the grandchildren go. I try not to cry but I always do.  After they left and I was sad Greg decided to take me to the Flotilla in Swansboro.  Since we had never seen one we decided to check it out.  There were probably about eight boats decorated. Below are some pictures of a few.  They are not that great, my camera does not do well in the dark.

The Flotilla didn't last very long so we decided to go to the movies.  We went to see Burlesque with Cher and Christina Aguilera.  It was a good movie with some really good music.   Well that was it for the Thanksgiving weekend.  We sure had a busy weekend but we had so much fun visiting with my son's family.  We sure are thankful that they were able to travel to visit with us and made it home safe.  Till next time....

Love,

Jennifer