And...one last trip to the OBX!

Yep, you're reading that right - this was my third trip to the OBX for the summer, second with Carrie, and second without Evan! Fourth beach vacation overall, including our trip to South Carolina. I felt so lucky that the kids and I were able to be at the beach so much this summer (and I know Evan enjoyed the two trips he was able to go on with us immensely!); who knows if we'll get to do that again, ever, in the future.

This last trip was really just an extended 3 day weekend to go pick up the kids. After spending the week at the OBX with our friends, my parents actually kept Natalie with them for a week, just her and them. Driving away from her wasn't easy, but wow did she have a blast with them (and they with her!).

We then got to spend the time with Henry at home, which was really fun. And Natalie so enjoyed the time with her grandparents, as they did with her. Henry was a bit jealous that he didn't get solo time with them, so we told him next summer he should be big enough to do that :) I'm just so happy to see that the kids are big enough now where this sort of thing is possible!

At the end of that first week, I actually took Henry to Richmond to meet up with my mom (and Natalie), and hand off Henry. Mom then took the both of them back to their house for another 5 days! Our daycare was on vacation that week, so we were really fortunate that my parents could take the kids. At the end of that week, I once again grabbed my sister and we headed down for a 3 day weekend so I could pick up the kids, and we could celebrate my dad's birthday.

On our first evening there, we took a nice walk in a nearby park.

Mom and Natalie really wanted to show us this pond they'd found where you can feed turtles...and that is home to a massive snapping turtle.

I have to be honest, I had a hard time believing this thing was as large as they said it was, but when we saw it...holy cow! You'll see normal box turtles, and a larger snapping turtle in this video...and then the massive head pops up to feed.

I actually took way longer videos, but posting them here when they're more than about 30 seconds is difficult, so you get this short clip for now. Let's just say, when the turtle was just sitting there staring at us (and yes, it did that), I definitely get a bit weirded out. Just so prehistoric looking!

We also found this lovely arboretum just on the other side of the pond and explored there for a bit. The kids really liked that it was all covered; I did not like all of the mosquitos! But definitely a pretty place. 

On Saturday, we took the kids down to the beach for a while in the morning. It was pretty perfect beach weather!

Sunday was my dad's birthday, but as we had to leave that day we celebrated on Saturday night instead. I was really glad that we got to be there!

That night we took the kids to go play mini golf where my dad has his summer job, and on the way back drove down to the Sound to watch the sunset. I only had my iPhone, but holy cow - check out this panoramic photo. It was stunning.

Definitely a nice last beach trip for us for 2015!

A week at the OBX with friends!

During the last week in July, our entire family headed back to the OBX (yes, only 3 weeks after I'd left last time, and two weeks after the kids had left!). This time, though, it was not to see my parents, but instead to stay at a pretty awesome beach house with a bunch of our college friends! We'd done this 3 years ago, and a couple of my friends had not gotten to the beach at all since then, so it was definitely time. This year, we piled 10 adults and 9 kids into the house (kids ranging from about 9 weeks old to 9.5 years old), and really had a blast.

We had a few requirements: master bed/bath combos for the adults, at least one room to throw all of the kids into, short walking distance to the beach, and a pool being the main ones. While starting a bit later than we should have on finding a house, we did manage to find one about a mile south of the town of Duck, and the location could not have been better. We were on a cul-de-sac right next to the beach, had our own pool in the backyard that was most in shade by the evening (and we put a tent over the shallow end, helping to keep it shady for more of the day). We had a great big kitchen space, with lots of seating for dinner, and each couple had their own room. Even better, we got the 6 oldest kids to all share a room together, making it even easier on the parents!

We fell into a really nice routine while there: beach for a couple of hours in the morning, back for lunch, a little quiet time after lunch, then the pool (or sometimes the opposite - pool, then quiet). We rotated dinners, with each family cooking dinner one night during the week, with the first night being "make your own pizzas" and the last night being leftovers - it worked really, really well! It was nice to only have to cook once (and who am I kidding, Evan did our family's cooking, and did it very nicely). Then, after bedtime, it was game time! We do enjoy our board and card games :)

I've got WAY too many photos to share here - between myself and my friend Beta (who alone took well over a thousand photos that week, I believe, and was nice enough to give them to us all, as I then shared mine with everyone else), we've got thousands. And frankly, no one really wants to look at someone else's vacation photos, I know. But I know that my family does love to see the kiddos, so I'll just post some of my favorite ones of them from the beach. These are a mix of ones that I took using my point-and-shoot, Kathy's waterproof camera (which was the best - I really should have gotten one this summer, and may try to remedy that for next summer!), and my DSLR - depending upon what I took down to the beach each day.

July 27:

 

Natalie and Zabby had fun on the beach:

While Henry enjoyed the pool a bit more, especially as he can now dive under water! Unfortunately those rings were a bit far for him (but he got there later in the week!).

July 29: Better weather than the previous day! I took my DSLR down for "better" photos

 

 Jason buried his daughter in the sand, which turned into him having to bury everyone in the sand!

 

Natalie loved learning how to boogie-board. There were two at the house that we all shared - and yes, us adults got in on the fun too!

7/30: Another bright sunny day..although we did have clouds show up. These were all from Kathy's waterproof camera. Check out me and my girl!

 More sand burying.

 and boogie-boarding!

Natalie took this video of Zabby and I!

7/31: Another day with the DSLR

 

 

8/1: Sadly, our last day at the beach!

 

Seriously, this girl loves to boogie board! 

And Henry still really, really, really loves the pool

Natalie spent some of her time in the pool learning how to dive. She never got a lot better than this, but it's better than she could do at the beginning of the week!

Looking through these photos really makes me want to go back! The time with our friends is so much fun. It would be even better if we could go with more of our old college group, but there start to be a lot of logistical issues with having more people in a house. Maybe one option would be to have multiple houses rented near one another for a week? Something to think about for sure. Or, let's just do like we did in 2006 (before I started this blog) and go to an all-inclusive house in Costa Rica for a week. That was awesome, and we had our own chef and bartender. Yeah, let's do that again :)

Fun times with Henry

Because Natalie has 2.5 hours of dance now every Saturday afternoon, Henry and I have gotten to spend a lot of time together over the past month, which has been really fun! We've run errands, grabbed food together, played at the house...lots of fun stuff! Here's a highlight of some of our fun.

First, while running errands we tried on some Halloween items at Michael's:

 

We've gone for nice walks around the pond:

I took him to a birthday party at Pump It Up one Friday night. Sorry that it's so dark - it was a Glow in the Dark party. But you can see him by the glowing yellow necklace around his neck! First here he is on the slide:

And here he is making a 5' jump that I'm not even sure I would want to make!

He's also been doing great at school - I love seeing everything he brings home! And piano class is going really well; currently we are working on Fur Elise, and it's so great to hear him play, and work on left and right hands playing together.

He's also been reading up a ton - he got this one from the school library two weeks ago, and read the whole thing through the first night home. He got a second one by the same author earlier this week, and has already blown through it. He's definitely our little reader!

And I know I posted this on FB, but how cute was he yesterday as we sat outside and watched the Leesburg Air Show? Love that smile.

Brandi Carlile & First Aid Kit 2015

And...summer event #2 at Wolf Trap! We first saw Weird Al in June, and then I waited impatiently for this concert. I absolutely love seeing Brandi Carlile (I believe this was the 6th time that I've seen her live, and she gets better each time), and this time was the most exciting for me for two reasons. First, I took Natalie with me! I've raised her on Brandi's music, and promised her last year that the next time Brandi came through town I'd bring her with me. She was even more excited about it than me, I think!

As you can see in the above photo, we were not the only ones excited - it was a sold out show! 5,000 people, I believe. So excited to see that many turning out for such an awesome artist.

We went a bit early for dinner, meeting Kathy and her mom there. Kathy's mom is the sweetest, and she and Natalie had the best time talking to one another. It was so very cute!

The second reason I was so excited was because of the opening act: First Aid Kit! I found out about them last year, with the release of their third CD (although I'd never heard the other two before that). I was able to see them live last October in DC, and they were fantastic. To then find out they were opening for my favorite singer? Almost too much! Luckily, Natalie really likes them as well ("the two sisters", as she calls them), so she was doubly excited for this concert.

Here is First Aid Kit! I once again brought in my Powershot point-and-shoot, as it's small and the zoom function is just great.

Here's my girl singing (and dancing) along!

Then, after a brief break to switch out the equipment, it was time for the main act! There was a lot of moody, cool back lighting which made for some pretty awesome photos. And a little different from what she's done in the past, which I really liked.

But I also love these acoustic moments, when it's just Brandi and the Twins (Phil and Tim).

This song is one of my favorites off of the new album ("Beginning to feel the years"), and there was something in the way that it was sung at this concert that really got to me - I had tears during. It's an emotion song, and so beautiful. Unfortunately, I recorded a much shorter snippet of the song than I thought I did, but it's still really pretty!

In the spirit of honesty, I actually teared up at least 3 times during the show. Everything just seemed so raw and emotional, and the performances were just so good.

But lest you think that all she does is acoustic - the lady can rock too!

I recorded this one for Henry, as this is his favorite song on the new album ("Mainstream Kid"). He really likes the rocking guitar parts!

And of course she did on older one, but one that is a fan favorite at every show. She splits the audience into 3 parts, and we all sing the harmony together on "Turpentine". There's something amazing about 5,000 people singing this together!

One last photo of them exiting the stage. So much talent, energy, and overall a great performance. Love seeing this lady in concert, and can't wait to go again!