family vacay. 2012

We had one of the best vacations ever back in early August.

We spent hardly any money.

We hardly got dressed in much more than a bathing suit or yoga pants/basketball shorts.

We only wore flip flops.
And we just sat by the beach.

It was perfect.

 Rebecca's parents have a house at Topsail so we went for a week. Rebecca and I drove down with Chase, Austin and Deuce. Ed, Daniel & TJ came down a day later. The first thing the boys wanted to do was go to the water and throw rocks and mud. They could do this for hours.

 Rebecca's sister and nephew came over to hang out for a little bit. Talon is only a few months younger than Deuce & Chase.

 All week long the boys had their fair share of timeouts.

They would push, shove, fight over toys, cry and scream and then hug it out a few minutes later.

Neither of them go to daycare yet so it was good for them.

Rebecca and I just laughed most of the time.

 We spent most of our time at the beach. Believe it or not Deuce has never been to the "ocean" part of the beach. We usually go to mom's place and it's on the sound with it's own beach area so we never have reason to go to the ocean side. Deuce immediately became obsessed with the ocean and the waves.

 Like he didn't want to get out of the water obsessed.

Like he had super bad diaper rash from the sand and water.

 You know we played sports.

Is that a stance or what?

 We hung out on the amazing screened in porch.

 We napped on the beach.

 We attempted to put Deuce and Chase together on a mattress on the floor. They both slept through 1 night and got up at the same time super early. Both boys crawled into bed with me & Ed and slept a little longer.

 Daniel & Rebecca took the boys on the kayaks so I could take a nap.

Alone.

 Deuce had so much fun on the kayak that it put him right to sleep.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest. It was beach, beach, beach for us and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I am missing summer vacation already.

West Jefferson

Dad told me and Laura back in the spring that he wanted to take a trip to the mountains over the summer. We thought it sounded like a great idea. Laura used to be a Scottish Highland dancer for like a gagillion years and she competed at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games every year. This is one of the biggest games there are and competitors even come from Scotland. Dad said he wanted to go to the games since we hadn't been since Laura stopped dancing, before going to college. Dad booked a cabin and we made plans. Ed & TJ couldn't come because TJ started his AAU basketball nationals that weekend so they were out of town too. One of the nice things about moving west to Greensboro from Chapel Hill is that it knocks off an hour when going to the mountains.  It only took us about an hour and forty five minutes to get to the cabin. Once we arrived, we immediately had to play baseball. Ever since the College World Series, Deuce has been obsessed. He has 3 bats in the house and he wants to play all the time. This thrills my dad to no end because baseball was his life growing up.

I don't know what kind of ball player he's going to be as he gets older but I can tell you he's going to play ball. Some form of it.

After playing baseball we decided to go down to the river. The Neuse river ran right in front of the house and Deuce was so excited! Can't you tell??

The house was beautiful and had a recliner in the corner. This was the boys' spot all weekend. They sat together, ate there together and played in that chair together.

When we got up on Saturday morning it was raining so we didn't want to go to the games and sit in the rain. I did not want to do that with Deuce. No way. So we hung around the house until the weather passed. Then we decided that we would go fish and play in the creek. We had a blast!

Well we had so much fun playing in the water that we totally lost track of time. We knew we had basically missed all of the highland dancing for Saturday but there was still a Celtic rock band playing that night so we headed back to the house to shower and get ready.

He loves his Pop.

He loves to dance too.

I know I've said it time and time again. And I've posted several videos as well but it's such a part of who he is. Music is on and Deuce is dancing. No matter what kind of music it is.

He had the attention of everyone in the bleachers behind us. It was hilarious.

We decided that next year we will get to the mountains early enough on Friday to play in the river and go see the highland dancing Saturday morning, as long as the weather is nice. It was still a nice trip though and I really enjoyed hanging out with my dad and my sister.

Here are some Instagram shots from the weekend.

The scenery is amazing.

And Happy Birthday to my dad. He's 58 today.

We love you Pop!