Sun, Sand & Sea
The last week of July my family got to take a vacation to the Outer Banks. There were 14 of us total. Dylan & Megan were there the week before us with their friends and couldn't take 2 weeks off of work. We missed them terribly. We did get to see them Saturday night and have breakfast together Sunday morning before they left. We can't seem to coordinate our schedules to get a beach vacation in, but I'm so grateful that we got to spend some time with them.
We arrived on Saturday afternoon. My mom & Tom had been there since the Wednesday before (they had to have a vacation before we all arrived 😂.) We got the rooms set up and made a small grocery run for the essentials until we could decide what we were going to eat for the week. The kids & adults enjoyed the pool that evening. Drake, Garrett & I walked to the beach to check it out while the little kids stayed at the house with the family. The sight of the ocean is something to behold and is so peaceful/intimidating to me. I stand in awe of when the ocean meets the sky every time I see it. There was a sign on one of the stores that said something about respecting the ocean and it's so true! It really is a whole other world under there!
Sunday was Charley's 9th birthday. She got to wake up at the beach, her favorite thing to do. She's gotten to do it for 3 birthday's now, if memory serves me correctly.
Monday was Noah's first sight of the beach, he loved it! Now, I'm not really a beach person. I like the ambiance of the beach but I don't like sand! Noah loved the sand! It was probably his favorite part. I cringed when he ate chips with sand all over his hands. He, however, thought it was great. We had A LOT of baggage to take to the beach. We took a pool for the kids to play in (that we put countless buckets of water in and still didn't make a dent in it) We had coolers and umbrellas and canopies and chairs and beach bags and on and on and on. We were like pack mules walking through the sand, that by the afternoon when we left was like lava! I had ordered a wagon from Amazon that had good beach reviews. As Garrett was pulling it down the beach in the sand he reminded me multiple times "oh it has good reviews" because he thought it sucked. Tuesday was the same, Wednesday started off cloudy so my family did some shopping and then just hung out at the pool that afternoon. Thursday we went to the sound. I like the sound because there are no waves and I don't have to go in the water with Charley, she can do it. The water there was SUPER muddy this year. My great niece, Hadley, got stung by a jelly fish while out walking on the sandbar with her dad. Needless to say none of us wanted in the water much after that. She thankfully is fine, but it was painful for her for the rest of the day. Friday morning I got up and did the walk "thing" (read previous blog to understand) although by Friday I could keep pace! We got rained on walking back and after looking at the weather all decided to pack up and head for home. We would have had to check out by 10 a.m. on Saturday anyway. By the time its time to go home, I'm changing "modes" and mentally going over everything I need to do when I get home. So, I wasn't sad that we left a day early. It gave me an extra day at home to get the laundry done and the groceries, menu for the week (both at home and for the store) and get back in a routine. My personality loves a routine.
When you get that many people in one house together for any period of time you are bound to have "issues". Thankfully we didn't have many, LOL. Everyone did what they wanted to do and we still had meals together. That makes my mom happy. As a mom of an adult child who lives on his own now, when all of your kids can come together in one place makes your momma heart happy. So I would say overall it was a good week. I hope you all get to go on a vacation and enjoy each others company long enough to not get on each others nerves. It's back to the grind for us and there's no place like home!
Wishing you sunny skies and green pastures,
McKession
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