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Blog, obx vacation, summer, vacation

The Last of Our Summer Vacation


The last of my vacation posts! After this, I’ll be moving on to all things fall and baby! But since it’s been in the high 80s and technically still summer, I can still get away with posting pictures at the beach.

I took more beach pictures than anyone probably needs–and to everyone else, maybe they all start to look the same. But to me, they each bring back a memory from our time there. Each picture tells a story and I love to sit with our kids and look through the pictures and talk about them. Pictures have been such a great way to help with their memories. They will often recall a funny or happy moment that they remember after looking at a picture. I always want our children to enjoy having family conversations and this is a great way to start that love at a young age.

This picture of Clementine! Major heart eyes! We kept joking around about it looking like a senior pose haha.

We were blessed to have amazing weather during our trip. There was a little rain one day but that didn’t interfere with our plans. And then a storm rolled in overnight that same day. When we went to the beach the next day, there was this little ledge that the kids enjoyed playing on and jumping off of. And leave it to me to fall down when I tried to take a step down. So full of grace.

We also noticed what we thought were jellyfish all over the beach. After a bit of googling, we found out that they were just the skeletons of dead jellyfish and that you won’t get stung from touching one. I’m just trusting my husband on all of this because I didn’t actually read about it. Liam spent hours–seriously…hours–playing with the darn thing. He’s definitely very excited to learn about them in Science this year. He loved it so much that he tried to sneak it back to the beach house with us. But it disintegrated…so that’s lovely.

If ever the term “superdad” was necessary…


Evangeline kept posing with this bucket on her head and begging to take her picture. Her personality is kind of hilarious sometimes.

I call this picture of Desmond (below) the “walk of shame.” This little 2 year old in his 12 month swim trunks that kept falling off. He had to bring them back to us to put them back on him.

One of my very favorite parts of our trip was a walk over to the sand dunes to fly kites. I specifically bought kites to fly at the dunes and I didn’t remember them until 2 days before we left. Total regret! We kind of got “lost” as we were trying to find a good place to fly the kites and watch the sunset. Then when we arrived, there were 2 kids that needed to go potty SO BAD (even though I told them to go before we left haha.) But as soon as we busted out the kites, all of that was forgotten. And the kids had huge smiles on their faces. Their joy seriously made me so happy. I wish I could relive that evening with them.

And yes! Clem and I were there too 😉 I seriously cannot get over that smile with those little nubby teeth!

Seriously, look at the joy on Kingston’s face! I bought 4 dinky kites from a thrift store (that were new but probably originally from the dollar store.) And I spent a little more to get one from Amazon. And that one made all my kite flying dreams come true. Totally worth every penny of that $13 I spent haha.

Aaaannnd one more set of beach pictures. Because it was our last day before driving home. Coincidentally, it was also the first day that Clem let me set her on the sand. AND she played with the sand. Did you catch that? She waited until our last day at the beach to enjoy it. So many eye rolls haha.

I know you already get the point (because I’ve only said it a million times) but we had such a great time! I look forward to many more family vacations over the years, especially after we add baby #7 in February!!

If you missed my other vacation posts, you can see them HERE, HERE, and HERE.

I hope you’re having a great weekend!

Blog, obx vacation, summer, vacation

An Evening at the Beach


Are you sick of hearing about our vacation? Okay, I know you are haha. I tried to fit the rest of the photos into this post but there’s no way people are going to scroll for that long. So I had to break them up. But if you can deal with me for just a little longer, then we can move on to the other thrilling things in my life.

One of my very favorite parts of our trip was when we went to the beach one evening at sunset. The sun sets on the other side of the Outer Banks (so it’s not setting over the ocean) but the lighting was perfect and beautiful and it was so relaxing. Nights like those are the reason I want to live near the ocean! So dreamy.

This picture of Clementine with her daddy makes me smile every.single.time.

That evening was one of the first times that I was able to set Clementine down at the beach without her crying. We ditched beach towels this trip and used our new Gathre mat to sit on instead. And if I’m being completely honest, I loved it! It’s made out of leather so the sand brushed right off of it. It was so helpful to have somewhere to set Clementine down (even just briefly) while she avoided the terrifying sand. It’s also waterproof so now it’s our go-to blanket for picnics and everything else.

Desmond went through a short phase a few months ago where he would run away when he saw the camera. Now he’s constantly “cheesing” for the camera and photobombing every picture he can. 2 year olds–they are the best and the worst…all wrapped up in one adorable package.

P.S. any chance my kids will let me pose them like this 10 years from now?? ^^

All my kids loved having Mabel along with us. I can’t wait to see her and Clem interacting more as they get older but how special is it that they’ll always have these pictures together at the beach?! They are the cutest BFFs!

 

These pictures make it look like our beach trips are perfect and effortless and everyone is always happy at all times, which is not always reality. I’m sure there were some stressful moments but I honestly can’t even remember them anymore. I feel like I’m a broken record saying this kind of thing but honestly, all the hard work and stress to take a large family…well, anywhere, can seem like it’s not worth it. But we came home with the best memories that I hope will stick with them for the rest of their lives. It’s definitely not always easy, I’m not going to lie. But anything worth doing is going to take a bit of hard work. And this? This was worth it! All that to say–enjoy the good moments and learn from the bad.

 

 

If you missed my other vacation posts, you can click over to see them right HERE and HERE. My final vacation post will be up tomorrow and then I promise to stop annoying you! Well, about vacation, at least 😉

One more thing! There’s a new video up on our vlog! Don has been making short little micro-vlogs for his Instagram stories and combined a few to make a video for youtube. This one has 3 short videos about our trip to the Sand Dunes, Sunflowers, and Apple Picking.