Every year in Oriental they hold the Croaker Festival for the fourth of July. Last year, we were a house divided, JJ and Connor went to Oriental and Cailee and I stayed home because she had a slumber party. We found ourselves in that situation again but this time we were successful convincing Cailee to come with us to the boat. With the promise of a playdate with the birthday girl at a later date, she wasn’t too upset and was even looking forward to a weekend on Gdaddy’s boat. Part of our motivation was that we knew our upcoming beach trip would be sans JJ this year since we had the Disney trip not so long ago, so this was our one chance to have a mini vacay with the fearsome foursome this summer.

Normally, the foul weather we have to watch out for is rain or even hurricanes this time of year, so a forecast with nothing but sun seemed like a good one – and it was – but there was literally no breeze – it was just sun and 100% humidity. I actually got up to go run both mornings (at 6:00 AM) and thought if I went along the water there would be some relief, but it was just a thick blanket of air. Even still, the festival was great – the parade is always entertaining (the locals go all out) and the kids got their share of candy. Cailee walked away with third place in the limbo contest (the ref insisted it was done the right way – but gave every kid at least 45 tries – or so it seemed – JJ and I deemed it the longest limbo context EVER) and each picked up log (hogs) pigs with painted toe nails and hair bows (or a bow tie for the boy hog).

https://photos.amidewar.com/2018/July-1-2018

We didn’t go sailing (kinda need wind for that) but we did enjoy the pool, fireworks, hot dogs on the grill and an afternoon in Beaufort.