St. Patricks Day on Emerald Isle.

Okay, so I'm nearly a month late.  Really.  Eight days away from being a month late.  Ah well.  This is a tale of my St. Patricks Day adventure (and how I got to watch my dad play in his pipe and drum band!).


The best picture I could get of the festival.  Everyone in green!

After working three babysitting jobs in a row, my love and I packed our bags at 11pm and hit the road to Wilmington.  It's always interesting, driving that late at night, especially since I'm sensitive to bright light.  Argh.  Luckily though, we made it there, safe and sound.  Set all of our stuff down, and made sure to not disturb anyone, and fell asleep.

Let me pause there and explain something: my aunt (Brooke), uncle (Dennis), and their five children (Darian, Mallory, Bridget, Shay, and Brody) had been living with my mom, dad, brother, and myself in our 3 bedroom apartment for two and a half months at this point.  Tensions were high, and everyone felt like going crazy, because literally no one had their own space.  Previous to my coming up, they had decided they weren't going.  Or so we thought.

So we wake up around eight the next morning (which sucks when you went to sleep around two, but I digress), and Brooke is saying something about needing to get the kids ready to go. ...ok, what?  Oh, apparently she had decided overnight that she felt like going, and now everyone was going.  So now our tiny family trip turned into this huge parade.  We had wanted to leave for Jacksonville around 10, so we could get there around 11 and watch my dad play for a long time.  Well, that went out the window because now we had to get all the kids dressed and fed, and then it was off to Walmart to buy a stroller for Brody, because when he isn't in his stroller, he's a wee bit much to handle.

Wouldn't know it looking at this innocent face :D

So around 11, my dad texts me "Hello offspring!" which makes me smile.  I love my daddy.  He asks where we are, and I tell him we are just finally leaving Wilmington.  The trip there was mostly long and BO-RING.  It was my mom, my brother, Thomas and I all riding in a tiny Kia Rio.  And I mean TINY.  So when we finally got there, it was great, because we could stretch our legs.  It turns out that they'd turned this shopping center on Emerald Isle into a giant street festival!  It was pretty cool.  We walked around and looked at some stuff for a bit, but since it was around 12:30, Brooke decided the kids needed to eat.  So they all went to go find somewhere to eat, and me, Thomas, Bridget, Jared (my bro) and my mom go off to find my dad, so we could watch him play!  We finally found them, and it sounded awesome.

My dad in his supercool shades.

They played a few songs with us there, including one guy who did a solo on the pipes.  Definitely the most interesting thing I've ever heard.  We were able to inch closer and closer until I was finally up front.  My heart was bursting with pride for my daddy, I love him so much and he looked like he was having a ball.  We looked over and saw Darian standing at the other edge of the crowd, and all of a sudden, there was the rest of the family too!  Turns out the Michaelangelos pizza they were looking at eating at was super duper crowded.  So we decided to split ways again - Thomas and I had noticed there were certain rides at the end of the festival, so we went to check it out, with Jared and Darian with us.  Too bad we didn't check out WHAT rides they had, because it was super lame - there was only one "big kid ride" in the whole place.  Oh well, we bought tickets and dealt with the consequences.  Darian and Thomas were the only two to ride the crazy ride, because I was too fat, and Jared left us there all alone.  Haha.

Somehow being too fat to ride didn't bother me.  The cars swung around by the way.

We waited in line long enough for them to do that twice (and long enough for me to beast at the darts twice to win two monkeys).  Thankfully, two times was enough for them, and we went back to find the rest of the family.  We found them looking around some shops (right around where I found the most perfect luggage/duffle bag, but it was sold before I could get it) and I decided to stay with.  Thomas and Darian went their own way around the festival, checking out treats and chicken terriyaki.  I'm really glad they got along so well - my ex wanted absolutely nothing to do with my family, and I was thinking about marrying this guy!  Family is super important to me, and everyone seems to love Thomas to pieces.  That's great, because I love him to pieces too :]  We all hung around, and I guess they decided all the kids needed some ice cream, so they got italian ice.  And got it everywhere, of course.  It was adorable :]

Darian and his princess Shay.

About that time, we met back up with Darian and Thomas.  Brooke was super ready to go, so they finally went to look at the petting zoo, while Thomas and I headed over to Andy's so I could get something to eat - I hadn't eaten since we'd woken up that morning.  I was just exhaustedddd.  I'd spent the whole day walking around and being up and watching little kids (well when I was with my family, I did haha) so to sit down for thirty minutes was really nice.  Andy's is pretty nice, if you're familiar with Johnny Rockets, it's the same kind of atmosphere, excpet there aren't any roller skates.  I thoroughly enjoyed my food, and taking pictures of Thomas :]


The only nice picture I ended up with of him.

We ventured out afterwards to find my parents and my brother.  It was almost 5pm and we were totally ready to leave.  So think about this if you will - my mom, my dad, my brother, Thomas, and myself all in a five-seater Kia Rio.  This thing is smaller than a freaking beetle.  Most uncomfortable hour of my entire life.

The rest of the day was completely uneventful.  Dinner and all that jazz, and that's pretty much it.  I have one picture that seems to sum up my mood of the day there though:

Scrunchy face!

Tune in next time for my ranting about apartment living (and living with someone new), and excitement about my upcoming 21st!