BIKES, BIKES, BIKES !

It seemed like a great idea.

“Charleston” and I had been running the first couple days at Oak Island (Long Beach), but wanted to switch up our workout routine while on vacation. So…I decided we should rent beach cruisers!

BIKES, BIKES, BIKES!

We drove to the only place we knew of, Oak Island Rentals, on the main beach strip. The bike rental inventory was rusty and scarce but, without knowing if there were any other rentals on the island, we scooped up the last two bikes that looked as if they would at least roll and loaded them into the 4-Runner.

Growing up, until I started high school, my family had a house on SE 70th street at this beach. Long Beach was all I knew of when thinking of a beach vacation. Blair and I used to go all over the island on our big wheels, bikes, and roller blades. Therefore I was very familiar with the area.

Now, they don’t call Long Beach LONG for no reason; seriously the island goes forever. When we got back to the house “Charleston” said he was ready to ride bikes, so I had been planning in my head, what I thought, was the perfect route! I was ready!

And off we peddled…

21 miles and several hours later….we were done. Holy Moly riding bikes as kids was so much easier then at age 26! I never would have guessed that the "little" trip I had planned out would be 21 miles. As kids, we probably rode double this in a day on our “excursions.” Neither “Charleston” nor I could walk when we got off our beach cruisers. I don’t think God made beach cruisers to go 21 miles in one sitting!

On a positive note, while we were riding, I had the most amazing time with “Charleston”. We did bike tricks as we stood on the handle bars, picked out houses we would love to own one day and watched as the kid came out in both of us. Besides the numbness in my butt, our bike trip was very relaxing and time well spent with just the two of us.

(Obviously we were not hurting too bad because we opted to ride the bikes 10 miles back to Oak Island Rentals to return them the next morning! Money and time well spent! BIKES, BIKES, BIKES!)

**click on any picture to view larger**

Me and Barbara testing out our rental Beach Cruisers!

I was on Matt's bike and Barbara was on mine. Matt's bike was simply just a piece of rusted junk! Ha ha poor baby. My bike could have been called "blue lightening"!

Barbara was cruisin'
The Atkins Family goes crabbin', the real way -raw chicken and string!
We ended up catching enough crabs to make crab dip one night for dinner.
The house we stayed in was perfect (that's it in the background to the right). The sound was in the back and the beach was a block away to the front - Perfect location!
Me and boyfriend on the beach getting our tan on as Carter was walking up in the background to join us.

Here is my families old beach house on SE 70th Street! It still looks exactly like it did when we were little. I just had to go by and take a picture. It was honestly hard looking at this house because it brought back 100,000,000,000 memories and made me want to jump back 15 years and live it all over again. Being at this house was some of the happiest times of my life.

Since "Charleston's" birthday was on June 29th, his mom made him a birthday cake to celebrate. The homemade icing was RICH and AMAZING!

"Charleston" with his two sisters, Katherine and Lorene

"Charleston" and his Momma - HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

and me....rockin' my 4th of july dress...I wasn't ready for my picture to be taken :(

Overall a fabulous vacation!