The last Sunday in June, our friend Nick, who interned at BSH and became a friend of George's before returning to NC State, came to stay a few nights with us, along with his fiancee and their adorable little toy poodle. In theory, I love having house guests, particularly the kind who aren't related to us. However, it always stresses me out. The house is never clean enough. I'm always worried about what everyone likes to eat, etc. So I totally stressed myself out, along with every other member of this household, in order to get our house in even a semblance of respectability. I know I am probably too hard on myself, but then again, I live with a man who has lots of great qualities, but tidiness is not one of them. Honestly, at times, I feel that even Drake is better at throwing away his own trash and picking up after himself. I am not really exaggerating. Both George and I come from homes where cleanliness, tidiness, and order were not real high on the priority list, so I feel that we are fighting an uphill battle most of the time. To me, it is a bigger deal than it is to George, because the house is largely my domain and responsibility, being that I am by job title, a "homemaker". So naturally, I am going to take more notice and offense if someone leaves his or her shoes or empty soda can (my pet peeves!!!) where they are not supposed to be.
I have spent a lot of time drilling into the children that as soon as they come in the door from school, or anywhere, their bookbags go straight away in a designated place, their coats get hung up, their shoes go into the hall closet, and their lunchboxes go in a certain spot. This is so that hopefully, as they get older, they will not even have to think about these things, but will just automatically do them. It is so much easier to put certain items away as soon as you come into your home rather than pile them up on the kitchen table or the sofa for someone else (ME!!!!) to put away later.
But I digress. So, Nick and Lisa spent two nights with us, and they were a lot of fun to have over. They spent literally several hours in the playroom with all of us, playing Nerf basketball and throwing balls at the children, who were delighted. Bart really enjoys Nick's attention. I was very glad that the two of them were able to visit with us.
Directly following their visit came George's and my ten-year-anniversary. Oh, we had entertained grand plans over the past several years of returning to Europe for our 10th wedding anniversary, or even of taking all the children to Disney. However, we hadn't envisioned me being heavily pregnant with our fourth child and being strapped for cash when we were dreaming our lovely dreams. So what did we do? Absolutely nothing. We had no babysitter, no time, and no real desire to go do anything we could actually afford. Plus, two days later, we would be leaving to go to a family reunion at the Outer Banks. Directly following the reunion, we would be having more house guests. Frankly, we were both exhausted and stressed out. There is nothing like a vacation for making you long for a vacation.
George's brother Alan, and his wife, Mary Kay, and their two daughters, Abby and Emily, stopped by on Thursday the 3rd to visit and rest before we all loaded up and headed to Pine Knoll Shores for the reunion. They had driven from Pennsylvania to Virginia the night before, completing the last leg of the trip that morning. We ate lunch together and headed out about 3pm. Traffic wasn't great, and it took us about an extra half-hour to get to the reunion site. The last reunion, two years ago, was also held on the island, at Trinity Center, where George's cousin, Chris, works. Chris was good enough to organize the reunion again this time, so we stayed at Trinity Center again. It's really a nice site for a reunion. The rooms are organized into pods around central common rooms which contain a TV (sans cable or satellite), plenty of chairs, a small fridge, microwave, sink, and snacks provided by the Center. Outside, a spacious raised deck connects all the rooms in a pod (I'm not sure if "pod" is the right term, but it's the best I can come up with right now). We were lucky to be very close to the pool, and only a short walk to the beach via a tunnel that takes you below the very busy main island road straight to the shoreline. All meals were included in the price we paid (not a small sum, by the way, but worth it merely for the fact that it was fairly healthy, home-cooked food, cafeteria-style, and not fast food). I got quite spoiled with our bacon, egg, fruit, and waffle breakfasts. Drake had plenty of his favorite breakfast food at hand - yogurt - and there was always a variety of cereals available at any meal for those picky eaters among us.
Mosquitoes were pretty bad. But the weather was lovely. Not too hot, just perfect for being on the beach. It was rain-free until Sunday morning after check-out, when it poured.
All the children had a blast. Drake screeched a lot, which is presently a very annoying habit of his that we are trying to break. He was extremely attached to "Dada", which made life difficult for me when George needed some away-from-Drake time. I didn't sleep much and over-exerted myself. Skylar had a good time with her cousins Leslie-Grace and Abby. Bart of course hung out with Mack, but he surprisingly made very good friends with Lily, who is George's cousin Cathy's daughter. Bart, Mack, and Lily had quite the beach adventure, looking for pirate treasure. I made the foolish mistake of remarking that a piece of wood they found on the beach looked like it came from a shipwreck. Well, from that moment on, Bart went nowhere without that blasted piece of half-rotten wood. He was absolutely certain it had come from Blackbeard's ship which had wrecked off the coast of Beaufort, and surely, if they only looked hard enough, they could uncover the lost treasure. Somehow (I suspect George) Bart was able to get his piece of pirate ship back up to our room, despite my explicit instructions that the wood was not to leave the beach. Bart was so insistent that this wood came from Blackbeard's ship that he begged me for us to take it to a museum. Surprise, surprise, but the shipwrecked wood did not end up in a museum. It is now in Bart's closet, on display with several framed pictures of his.
Sunday afternoon, all of George's siblings and his parents came over to our place to have dinner. We ordered pizza and wings and had ice cream cake.
The children (all 8 of them) piled around the dining room table and we adults ate in the kitchen. As you can see, they all have such impeccable manners!
After dinner, we went outside to take pictures on the front porch.
These are my really cute kids and my nieces and nephews.
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