BEACH WEEK

Beach week is always one of my favorites. There is nothing like sitting in the sand, doing nothing all day.

As we drove in, we could see a thunderstorm brewing. It didn't stop us from stopping at the ice cream shop at the entrance to the neighborhood to wait for our PA cousins.

 The reunion couldn't have been sweeter.

 We hurried to check out the beach house view. PERFECT!

 And then jumped into the pool for a stormy swim.

 My sister made these awesome shirts for all the kids to wear for the reunion.

 I love them all.

The majority of our time had views like these:

 Luke became obsessed with boogie boarding, except for the short period of time after he got the cord wrapped around his neck and almost drowned. His fear didn't last long before he was back out there again.

 

 

But even the die hards needed a break from the beach sometimes. We played games, fought over who would hold Lizzy and ate lots of oreos!

 

 

 

(guess which kid lives in Arizona)

The dads took all the kids to a jumping place (because Nate and Ellie hadn't been to enough).

And the parents got out for a sushi date while my parents (and the big kids) babysat all the littles.

We took family pictures on the windiest day ever so all of our hair looked like it has never been brushed after 5 minutes.

 

 And then lots more trips to the ice cream store in our matching shirts of course!

And my mom lead all the kids in Kid Yoga everyday.

It was a sad day when the week was over. After we said good bye to our family we drove up to Williamsburg for one more stop at the Cheeseshop and . . . .

 To see my sister one more time. A week wasn't enough. We needed 30 more minutes before we headed to the airport.

 Everyone passed out about 5 minutes into the car ride to the airport. We managed to wake everyone up, get through security and get on the airplane. . .

 Just in time to hear there was bad weather, so we needed to get off the plane and wait.

 Luckily we had Luke to entertain us.

 We finally made it to Chicago, but due to the bad weather, all the planes out of Chicago were delayed for hours. Every 15 minutes they kept telling us they had found us a crew and hour after hour we didn't leave.

 We finally made it home around 3 am, or about 20 hours after we left the beach house. Never fly through Chicago!!

 This was the aftermath at church the next day.

July (part one)

We started out July with some of our favorite people. As the only people left in town for the 4th of July, we spent the night bowling and shooting off fireworks with the Christensens. 

 

 We are so lucky that even though we're far from family, we never spend a holiday alone.

 Luke started wearing his new favorite shirt -- his muscle shirt.

 We picked out the granite slabs for our new house. . . and finally told the kids we were moving in 2 months.

Then we sent the biggest two kids off to Tennessee for a week with their cousins. 

 Less than 10 hours later:

 Nate and Ellie are so lucky to get to spend a week every summer with their cousins. Last year we got to host them all here, so it was their turn to go to TN this year. Darian and Jen's house is way cooler than ours and they are loads more fun too, so I was sure the kids would never want to come home.

 We left at 3 am the next day for our own little adventure with Grandma and Grandpa in Virginia.

 Dustin gave Sadie and I the upgrade to first class. As Luke walked through he shouted, "Second class is way better, right Dad?" Everyone got a good giggle and we were only separated by a row so we could sneak them all our snacks.

 Dustin's favorite part of Virginia -- Rita's!!

 My mom and dad are the cutest ever. We took the kids fishing, but they didn't catch a thing.

 Still so happy though.

 We got donuts for out own little tea party.

 It was very fancy -- pinkies up!

 We spent some time in Colonial Williamsburg.

 And ate a lot of food.

Sadie requested a fancy lunch out, so we hit up the Blue Talon for some french food.

 

Sadie was impressed the moment she had her first Shirley Temple. But it took Luke until dessert to be really wowed.

 My mom and I went to Yoga.

 We got pedicures.

Meanwhile. . .

 The kids were living it up with Alex Anne and Wyatt.

 

 Shopping, 4 different jump places, water parks, and lots of fun places to eat. I guess they were up until the wee hours of the morning every day and slept until noon.

 We took the kids out for a real Southern breakfast.

 Luke fell into a food coma.

 We also tried Sno to Go after hearing it was better than Rita's Water Ice. It was not.

 Finally we headed out for our week at the Beach

While Dustin drove to Raleigh to pick these guys up from TN to meet us at the beach house.