Cross Country Road Trip (part 3): Devin and Josie's house!!!!

***Longest Blog Post Ever!  But worth reading!!!  Haha! LOL***

From the Kingsford's house in Rock Hill, South Carolina, we headed to Cary, North Carolina to see Devin and Joslyn and kids.  This visit has been long anticipated by all of us, especially Lily.  Devin and Josie suggested we meet in the middle and go to the awesome Zoo in Asheboro, North Carolina.  So we did!  It was so much fun! 

On our way someone, who will remain nameless, had to use the restroom, so we decided to stop at a little place that Tyler and Emilie introduced us to called Bojangles and pick up some breakfast while Ava, oops, I mean someone used the restroom.  They have delicious cinnamon twists, berry breakfast biscuits and amazing breakfast sandwiches.  Delicious!!! 

We made it to the Zoo and the girls didn't waste any time getting reaquainted with their long distance relatives.  We were all so happy so see them!!  I guess we saw some animals too! 

Ava and Cambry chumming it up! 

Aw, favorite Uncle!!!  Look at the wild Will standing up in his stroller!  Such a nuisance!! 

We started at the Zebras, I asked Lily to smile and this is what I get.  Haha!

We saw some sort of warthog...

The lion statues were great fun! 

Cambry and Vienna! 

The chimpanzees were amazing.  Lily liked the statues more than the actual animals! 

Checking out the chimps! 

Lily and Ava and Cambry examining this elephant skull.

The lemurs were quite exciting. 

Loved the air vents in the aviary. 

Lily and Cambry checking out the tortoises. 

Look at this crazy spider web in these trees!  They were all over the place!  Creepy, right?

Riding the rhino! 

Devin giving Ava a ride down the rhino slide! 

These eggs were such a hit! 

I loved these babies together, my brother Devin, caught Will pinching Vienna in every picture. In the ones I got, Will looks innocent.  :)

 Mind if I join ya?

 About to pinch, but not quite close enough!

Too cute!! 

Because Ava is a little obsessed!  LOL! 

The misting tree was awesome. 

Ava thought she would enjoy a little refreshment while she marched around it!  Haha! 

We all really loved the zoo. 

From there we headed to Devin and Joslyn's cute little house in Cary. 

Lily was so excited about the sleeping arrangements.  This bed was set up special for Lily! :)

So did Ava.  She got to sleep on the top bunk for once!

They also enjoyed all of Cambry's toys.  Ava especially loved this rocking chair that Josie just redid!  So Cute!!!

After we got settled in, Joslyn made lasgna for dinner and cookies and popcorn for later!  She was amazing just whipping everything up!!  We all enjoyed it! 

The next day we went to a park nearby.  My kids loved it!  I think they could have spent many more hours there!  It provided a lot of entertainment! 

 Lily swinging high!

These cute babies! 

Ava was very serious about her excavating.  She spent most of the time here, and when it was time to go she was frantically trying to play on everything else!  It was such a fun park!

More excavators! 

Ava and Cambry flying the airplane. 

I was super impressed with the range of these springy toys at this park.  I've never seen any that you could really get going like these ones.  Look at Lily go!  Rocking and rolling! 

Later that day, after some down time, we went on a hike at a place called Ulmstead, I think.  More importantly it is where they filmed Hunger Games!  We encountered this very private, old graveyard at the start. 

 Ava reading the gravestones. 

 I had to document these pictures of Cory being an extra super fun dad!! 

 When we made it to the water, everyone had fun playing in it!  Ava throwing rocks. 

 Lily trying to cross.

 Our fabulous hosts!!  What a cute family they are!  We love them!!

 Will sucking on the rocks, thank goodness he didn't get giardia (don't know how to spell that!)

 I couldn't stop laughing at this photo, does it look familiar to anyone?  Does Ava not look like a sasquatch walking through the forest?  Hahaha!  Or Will Farrell walking through Central Park on Elf! 

 Ava and Cambry sharing crackers, these two were so cute!

 Lily crossing the balance beam log. 

 Triumphant on the other side!

 We saw some frogs and a dead fish.  Of course, I just have a picture of the dead fish, can you see it? 

We had so much fun and afterwards we were pretty hungry.  So Devin and Josie took us to one of their favorite BBQ joints, Danny's place.  It was amazingly delicious!  Loved the fried okra, but the collard greens!!  Ugh!  I could hardly choke them down!  And most vegetables can be redeemed by enough salt and butter, but I'm afraid that there is no saving collard greens!  But we had to try them, being in the South and all! It was another great day spent with the Rappleye's and we were sad we only had one more!  But we were excited that we were going to spend it at the beach! 

Beach day was definitely my girls favorite! 

 Look at these cute babies!!!

 Absolutely love this picture of Ava and Cambry finding treasures!

 Will and Vienna were having so much fun crawling in the water, I wish that I had gotten a video of this!!!

 The weather was perfect!  And the waves were awesome!  My girls couldn't get enough wave jumping in!  Ava asked me once when the waves were going to "turn off"  I guess we've been to Seven Peaks a little too much this summer!

 Snack time!

 Not sure if Will was eating much more than sand!

 The boogie board was so fun!  Here's Lily enjoying it! 

 The whole beach bunch!  We loved our day at the beach! Big thanks to Devin and Josie for all the preparation that made it a great day! 

Spraying down after all the fun, I wish that I could have stripped down to get all the sand out of all my creases too like Will!  Ah, being a baby is the greatest! 

The next morning we had to start our long journey back home across the country!  One last bonding moment with Uncle Devin reading a story.

 Waving goodbye!  Blurry picture, but thats because we were crying!  LOL, just kidding!  But we were sad to leave our favorite people in North Carolina!  We love you guys!