Beach Babes!

As promised, I couldn't skip a re-cap of our awesome weekend at the beach in mid-May!  I had to travel to Raleigh for work...AGAIN...and with "Little Loose" and Uncle Chuck about 30 minutes apart...and about 2.5 hours from Raleigh, we decided to create a full adventure!

As usual, I left for work on Tuesday morning, Gary manned the fort while I was away, but then left on Wednesday to meet me in the [state] Capital city!  I hate traveling away from my little family SOOOO much, so it was very cool to get to see them on Wednesday evening!   We had a fun family night in the hotel ;), then I went to work :( while Gary took the girls to the Children's museum and then met me for lunch.  I went back for a couple of additional hours of duty while he wasted some time at the park, carefully keeping the girls awake until I met them and we were eastward bound...and the girls were fast-asleep before we made it to the highway!

We were originally planning to make our accomodations on Little Loose but had also planned to spend some time visiting with Uncle Chuck and Aunt Nan...after inviting ourselves even for that, Chuck kindly extended the invitation for us to stay at his pad, and we decided that might be better...It was PERFECT!!  We're so lucky to have family like that in such cool places!  :)

We got to Chuck and Nan's around 7, and after a few minutes "breaking in" and meeting the only allowed resident pet, we decided to head out for sushi!  I was a little bit nervous about Macy and Makayla's "table endurance" after such a long day, and they did end up getting a little bit grumpy before we left, but they did pretty darn good considering the circumstances!  We were all exhausted, so we hit the sack as soon as we made it home, and I secretly prayed for the chance to sleep in the next morning...silly me knew that that really wasn't going to happen, so when 6:15 rolled around, I wasn't at all surprised at my wake up call!  The girls and I took a jog around the neighborhood, made a quick jaunt down the boardwalk to catch a glimpse of the ocean, and then hurried home to dodge an impending storm. 

After a lazy morning at the house where we played with some new friends (tree frogs) and tried on some of Aunt Nan's finest jewels, we decided to take a little drive to the boat, stop by to see Uncle Chuck and Aunt Nan's awesome new boat, and grab some lunch in Beaufort.  It was a great day and the girls rolled with the punches like little troopers...but by evening, the shortage of nap time and the crazy schedule kicked in, and they were tired little ladies!  Fortunately that evening my cousin Hillary, along with her husband Matt and their new baby, Myles, came into town as well, and the girls got to say quick hellos before soon heading to bed. 

The next morning, as usual, the girls woke up right on queue and we made another quick jaunt around the hood before heading back to hang around the house to wait on the weather to clear.  The girls LOVED staring at and "playing with" "Baby Myles" and thought they were such good babysitters! :) 

After a late breakfast, the guys decided to go do some boat "stuff" and the girls (+ Myles) headed to the beach!  The girls were fascinated by the shore at first sight!  Macy was quickly ready to rid herself of her shoes and hit the sand, but Makayla quickly decided that the sand wasn't for her, and she would be perfectly fine as long as the flip flops stayed ON! 

The water was still quite cold, and the girls were pretty fearful of it anyway, so we did a little bit of walking around, then plopped on our towels for some fun in the sun.  Silly Mommy forgot all of our sand toys, but the girls were able to keep themselves busy for over an hour before we decided to head home for naps.

After a fairly long nap, we made a trip to a couple of the obligatory beach stores in a vain attempt to find some kind of worthwhile souveniers, and then took a stroll on the beach with Daddy, since he missed the first trip!  It was a nice, breezy afternoon, and the girls really got into watching the surf, running in the sand (although flip flops were still mandatory for Makayla!), and collecting sea shells.  It was a great family trip, but we were happy to have fairly consistent bed times for the girls so that we had a chance to enjoy a couple of amazing fish dinners and great times with the grown ups after dark! 

Sunday we packed up our (huge) load and headed down to check on "Little Loose" one more time before making our LONG journey home.  The girls were champs, but I will say that 6 hours in the car was a lot for ALL of us!  We all look forward to the next chance to see boats, water, sand and sea shells!  Belated thanks to Uncle Chuck (whose name the girls STILL love to say!), Aunt Nan, Hillary, Matt, and "Baby Myles" for sharing their weekend with us!

Roller Coaster Ride

Not a literal roller coaster, but man has it felt like it!

I am well over a month behind in posting an update, and the last blog that I almost finished but hadn't quite posted was a re-cap of our awesome trip to the beach back in the middle of May. I promise to catch everyone up on that, as well as the following weekend's trip to Atlanta to see family and to celebrate Emmy Cate's 2nd birthday. Both of those trips were so much fun, and deserve their own post and pictures, but I finally decided that it was more appropriate to do a full update of our crazy lives SINCE those trips, then back track so that I don't miss anything. Unfortunately, life has been too crazy for a lot of pictures, but we have captured a few fun moments on our phones, so I went ahead and scattered those throughout this update, just to make it a little more interesting!

Silly...

Willies...

The big news (that many of you know, but a few surprisingly do not) is that we MOVED!!  It's been a month-long process, and I have to say it's been pretty hellacious, for lack of any better terms to describe it.  However, we are FINALLY fully relocated.  I use that term carefully, since that does NOT mean that we're settled in...or even close to finished unpacking...but we are physically living in a new house and a new neighborhood.  We LOVE our new home, and are all very proud of the major remodel that Gary has spent the last 5 months managing.  We have a lot more space, a lot more room to get ourselves organized, and a lot of new "luxuries" (new appliances, showers, flooring, tile, etc).  It is AWESOME!!  Unfortunately, our spacious 3 car garage is still FILLED TO THE GILLS with junk...boxes and boxes of junk.  We may never get them ALL unpacked, but I'm hoping at some point I'll just accept the fact that I've survived without said junk for long enough that I can just throw it away...unfortunately, my inherited "Edna instinct" (thanks, Mamaw Childers), will most likely never let that happen! 

Breakin' in the new digs...before the furniture gets in the way!

We officially started our move on Memorial Day weekend...assuming that the timing was good for Gary to be around and I would be off work.  Little did we know that he'd be "ferrying race traffic" in the helicopter all weekend, and only had one full day at home.  Thanks to my wonderful mother, I had help with the girls all weekend, and, although I almost killed myself, I was able to survive.  My fantastic father put himself to hard labor as well, and between him, Gary, and a couple of helpers, they worked their butts off to move all of our furniture on Memorial Day.  At that point, we THOUGHT we were near the end...almost a full month later, we just carried over the last boxes yesterday...just in time for the renters to move in TOMORROW!  Oh my goodness, what a nightmare!!! 


Thrilled to have Marley over for a play date in the new play house!

Besides that, the weekend after our move, we were thrown for another loop when my mom was knocked over by her dog and ours, only to have her hip broken and land in the hospital for a few days and on a walker for weeks!  She has been in so much pain, and it's been pitiful to watch her suffer with not only the physical discomfort, but the agony of not being able to be there to help us or to really play with her grandchildren!  She's a trooper, of course, and will be back on her feet soon...and boy have I had a chance to appreciate all that she does for us on a regular basis!  (of course, Papaw has stepped up to the plate for all of us, and we've appreciated his help tremendously!)

Chillin in my cozy coupe

If all of this weren't enough, we've (probably more me...) been on an emotional rollercoaster.  Leaving the old 'hood was SO MUCH harder than I thought it would be!  We felt like we had truly outgrown our house there, and, as I said, are SO happy with the new house that we have.  We are supposed to be in an AWESOME neighborhood now (LOTS and LOTS of kids, family stuff, etc), but we LOVED our neighbors at Crown Harbor, and, of course, we were walking distance to the boat, where now it's a 15 minute drive...but, we do still have our friends, we have our boat, and I'm sure that we're going to "bond" with the new neighborhood, it's just a matter of time (which, hopefully we'll have more of now that we're fully moved). 

The emotions flowed much more heavily than I dreamed possible around daycare matters as well...since the new house is about a 20 minutes shorter commute for me to and from Charlotte every day for work, we were quick to start looking for a new daycare that was convenient and "in the way".  We found a place that was recommeded by friends, and we thought, after several visits, that it would be a good fit. Until...the day I picked up the girls for their last day at their old school, I just had this feeling that this wasn't the right thing...I never thought it could be so hard to do something like that for 2 pre-2-year-olds!  Crazy enough, I couldn't stop crying...for days!  I thought it was just my emotion about everything going on at once and everything would settle down...until the first week passed...and I felt worse.  The girls did ok at the new school, but I will say it wasn't an easy week...assuming we all just needed to transition, we waited another week...by the end of that week, I knew we had to "fix" this mess.  I was still a wreck about it, and, for several reasons, I just didn't feel like this was the right place for them to spend their days.  Considering how much guilt I have for working at all, it is EXTREMELY important for me that both us and the girls are HAPPY with their "accomodations".  A quick call to Goddard (where I expected to have to beg our way back in) was easily answered by the awesome director who was THRILLED to make necessary adjustments to work our girls right back in to where they felt at home.  They've been back for a week now, and, even though the drive isn't wonderful, none of us have had ANY doubt that this was the right decision for ALL of us! Taking the girls for their first day back to their old school was probably one of the most fun things I've done in a long time!!

SPECIAL treat!  A ride in the FRONT seat of Daddy's truck!

Whew...It's been crazy, we've had some tough days (emotionally and physically), and I felt, for our own "historical record", I had to provide some level of re-cap.  Although I've been very slack with pictures, we have managed to have a little bit of fun along the way, the girls have come to LOVE the pool, and they have just been wonderful about going with the flow through all of this and enjoying the crazy little adventures that have panned out because of it...and that's a lot to ask for 2 22-month olds!  Things are slowly settling down, though, and we all owe it to each other and ourselves to try to slow down and relax a little...in the end, it's still a beautiful life!!!  :)



Chillin at the pool

Learning to LOVE the boat!