Beach Week

We took our annual beach trip with Chi Alpha a couple of weeks ago and it was a blast! Max & Neveah are going to be really spoiled... they are going to grow up thinking that everyone gets to go to the beach with 30 cool college students that love to play with them! Let me tell you though, it was an amazing vacation.... Topsail was beautiful, kids did great, and all of the students were so sweet to Max & Neveah. THANK YOU to all of you Chi Alphaers for the fun week and for hanging out with my kids!

There will be another post with some better pictures coming because we also happened to be traveling with an amazing professional photographer who happens to also love my kids... extra thankful for that because my camera died half way through the week!
Until then these will have to do:

This is the wagon that came in super handy!


Neveah eating a combination of sand and animal crackers






More and more Max has proven to us that he is in fact all boy... the second we set foot on the beach he picked up sand and rubbed it all over himself... he stayed pretty dirty the whole week.




The house that we stayed in was amazing and it was on the ocean as well as the sound... there was also a swing set & sandbox for the kiddies to play in!










Neveah and I sitting on the dock waiting to wave at the next boat.




Jared & Andrew... the tater tot masters


Jared was so sweet playing with Max... Max learned cards as well as pool


Max & Katelin


We went to our favorite burger place Andy's... Max loves hamburgers and prefers to take bites himself... he is so old!


He also loves milkshakes.


Neveah waiting for the next sip of her vanilla milkshake.


Almost everyone... sorry to those that didn't make the blog... we still love you!


Me, Emily, & Grace


Its all fun & games til someone breaks an ankle!
On Tues. afternoon John and I were about to go on a walk with the kids and as I was walking down the stairs I rolled my ankle and tumbled to the ground. Max was in my arms, but since I have the reflexes & strength of a ninja I held him up the whole time and he was totally fine. Though none of this was funny at the time because of the large amounts of pain involved I will share a memory that I will never forget. John immediately took both the kids upstairs and then carried me to our room. As he was getting me situated on the bed the kids were standing side by side with their heads back screaming for all they were worth. The funny part is that my sweet sensitive little boy was screaming "mama crying, mama crying", while my forever hungry little girl was screaming with just as much intensity "crackers, crackers" You see, as I fell I did in fact drop the crackers I was carrying and they were all over the steps. Neveah will definitely be reminded of this story later in life!

My disgusting ankle (please refrain from sharing all the cankle jokes that are entering your brains). It did get bigger than this and then started turning all different colors.



Told you the wagon was really handy!




From Tues. on I did a lot of this:


Because of my inablility to walk I was really thankful for the wagon, elevator, & rolling chair... without them this injury might have ruined my vacation! Despite the injury it was still a great beach week.... there was lots of bonding, laughing, eating, & dancing in the kitchen... all the key ingredients!

Ankle summary- I waited a week and a half. When things still were not right I went in for an x-ray and it is in fact broken :( I am in a walking cast to my knee (not hot at all) for the next month at least (depends on what the next x-ray looks like)... a really huge bummer is that I also can't drive. No worries though we will survive and for the record John has been doing an excellent job picking up my slack and taking care of all of us!

THANK YOU to all of my amazing friends and family that have been helping drive us around, visit me, & watch the kids while I go to the Dr. I love you all!