Fourth of July

Here are some pictures I took of us on the beach the evening of July 4th. It was a gorgeous evening, slightly cool, with a brisk wind. We had a cookout on the beach in a raised pavilion, which was wonderful. After eating, we wandered down onto the beach to play for awhile.




















Skylar and Abby gazed out at the ocean while the wind whipped their hair back.



Bart, Mack, and Lily searched for pirate treasure and plotted how best to smuggle Bart's piece of pirate wreckage from "Blackbeard's ship" back to his room.













Drake, predictibly, played in the sand.










Once night fell, we walked back down to the beach to watch the fireworks. If we looked one way down the island, we could see the Emerald Isle display, and if we looked the other way, we could watch the fireworks at Atlantic Beach. It was really beautiful. I would probably define it as a perfect evening.

More Family Reunion Pics

Today when I was re-charging my camera batteries, I discovered that our regular digital camera had a bunch of photos from our beach vacation/family reunion over the 4th of July weekend. So I decided to include them on the blog since most of them are pretty cute.


In the pictures above, George is flying his $5.00 Harbor Freight kite, which is actually a pretty cool kite. It flew really well. Also, some pictures of the kids playing on the beach.






Drake is flinging sand as usual.



































Here, the children decided to bury Uncle Alan in the sand. It was quite an endeavor. Alan was a very good sport.















The real fun was adding the finishing touches to his sand ensemble: a seashell bra and other mermaid unmentionables. The seashell genitalia was of course the idea of one of the boys.































All right, the sand sculpture has had enough. Mindy wipes the sand off his face and Alan gets up.









So Bart decided to let the other kids bury him in the sand. It lasted about three minutes.

Besides the sand mermaid, we also encountered Medusa while we were out on the beach. (Skylar)










And a snaggle-tooth sun-bather. (Abby)

Pregnant Me

This is my second summer baby. I have two January kids (Skylar and Bart), and I will have two summer kids (Drake and little Lucy). I am normally a miserable pregnant person, but summer just kills me. My hands and feet are swelling and I feel like the baby may fall out at any moment, if I move a little too abruptly. I can't sleep because every part of me from my stomach on down hurts. Basically, I'm a bundle of complaints and grouchiness.

From the front, I look pretty normal, particularly dressed in black. Then - bam! - when I turn sideways, it's like a wide-load tractor trailer. OK, I'm exaggerating slightly. But it's still pretty weird. You can see for yourself in the pictures to the right. These were taken several weeks ago, with me in my favorite outfit at the moment - my swimsuit cover-up. I LOVE my swimsuit. I LOVE my cover-up. I LOVE going to the Y and relaxing in the warm water of the outdoor pool. It's absolute bliss.

So, only 24 more days to go, less if I'm early like I was with Bart and Drake. Two Fridays ago, Mindy came up to help me do household stuff for the day, then she took all three children back to her place. Oh my goodness, I was so excited. I missed the children terribly, but it was so quiet around the house that afternoon, I was able to get a lot of work done on the computer. Then, George and I went to a 9:30 showing of Get Smart. We slept in, and the next morning met Mindy and Kevin in Kinston. Renee and Tom babysat all three of our kids and Mindy and Kevin's two while we went on a day outing. First, we stopped at a furniture warehouse in Kinston where George and I found a low, long dresser for the new baby. It was off-white, but a great price, so we decided to paint it plain white to match the furniture in Skylar's room. We also found a storage bench for our entryway on clearance. So we snapped up those purchases and then carpooled with Mindy and Kevin all the way to Durham.

Southpoint Mall was our destination. We split up and spent the afternoon shopping. Mindy and I bought nearly-matching purses and wallets which were on deep clearance. I bought a pair of the new high-heel Crocs, and helped Mindy look for some clothing items. At 5:30 we met George and Kevin at Maggiano's, which is outside the mall, in the market streets area. Luckily, we had made reservations, because it was packed. The meal was fairly expensive - $25 per person, not including drinks - but well worth it. It was Italian family-style, and as long as we emptied the platters, the waiter would bring out more of a dish, which we were free to wrap up and take home with us if we wanted. We ended up bringing home enough leftovers for dinner the next evening. It was just fantastic food. I think everyone's favorite was the stuffed mushroom appetizer. Like I said, well worth the money, but man were we on the brink of nausea on the ride home! We made a quick stop at the KMart by NC State University, where they have lots of NC State merchandise for sale. By the time we got home that night, we were pretty tired out. I was proud of myself for hanging in there with an entire day spent walking. I'm sure it helped that I put my new Crocs on as soon as I had bought them, and they were super-comfy.

It was great to see the children again the next morning. Unfortunately, Drake threw up all over his bed and proceeded to spend the next few hours with diarrhea - hence his learning of the word. George and I juggled kids and church, and luckily, Renee was able to come back home after sacrament meeting to stay with Drake so I could go to Young Women's and George could go to priesthood and run choir practice. I don't think we'll ever have a weekend that isn't absolutely nutty, but I'm pretty sure if we did, I wouldn't know what to do with myself!

Staying Busy

I was a little upset on Friday when Bart, Skylar, Drake, and I were eating dinner together. George was over at some friends' house, helping them fix their car, so it was just me and the munchkins, eating leftovers.
Well, Bart had the nerve to tell me that it had been a boring summer so far. I really let him have it. Number one, I have been absolutely exhausted this summer, from carrying this baby, so I haven't felt much like doing anything. Number two, I have stretched myself to the limit trying to allow the children to do fun things, despite my lack of enthusiasm and energy. Number three, I am carrying around a wee bit of guilt for allowing myself to sleep late in the mornings. Number four, gas prices are sky high and we can't go to the beach as much as we might have last summer.
That being said, we have gone to the pool A LOT, taken swim lessons, gone to the library, gone to the beach, had a vacation/family reunion at the beach, gone to some summer movies, and had A LOT of company stay with us. I think we have done A LOT this summer, particularly since I have been so tired and wishy-washy.
So I laid it all out for Mr. Bart Savitz, and I felt better about what we have done. I told him how when I was his age, we didn't do ANYTHING over the summer. We played outside, we occasionally (like once every two or three years) went on vacation or to the beach. We only went swimming at the town pool when I was a teenager. When I was a kid, we had a little plastic wading pool, and we spent most of our time in it outside, or under the trees playing Barbies or reading. That's it. And you know what? There was absolutely nothing wrong with that. We had a blast, and the summer seemed to go on forever. When it was time for school to start again, we were ready and excited.

Now, with school barely a month away, glaring at us, I want to say "Where the heck did all of the summer go?" It seems like only two weeks ago we were buying end-of-the-year teacher gifts and anticipating our first day at the pool. And now George and I just blew over three hundred dollars this weekend buying new school uniforms and supplies, and we're not even done yet! We still have shoes to buy and lunch boxes, too.
And that's another thing. When my sister and I were in school, there was no "School Supply List" waiting for us at the front of Wal-Mart or given out at the end of the year for the following school year. We bought backpacks, lunch boxes, pencils, paper, binders - whatever we thought we might need for the year. Oh no, not in this day and age. Back then, we didn't have to buy Chlorox wipes, hand sanitizer, Kleenex, reams of computer paper, jumbo glue sticks (each one is from $1.50 to $2.00 and we often are asked to buy as many as four of them!), highlighters, paper towels, gallon Ziploc bags, and the list goes on and on. And I haven't even mentioned the necessities - pencils, paper, notebooks, etc. Are you kidding me? Why on earth does each kid need to bring in two reams of computer paper? Is the school system not providing paper all of a sudden? It blows my mind. And this is public school! When Skylar attended Charter School, I was perfectly happy to donate $20 or so worth of school supplies. But public school? Am I providing two reams of computer paper to balance the cost of the school buying new computers or sports equipment? Are my son's $2.00 apiece jumbo glue sticks going to be for his use, or for the kid sitting beside him whose parents didn't bother sending any supplies in at all? Maybe I'm being a jerk, but all this stuff really adds up. And my kids aren't in public school by choice, but because there isn't much of an alternative since we moved two years ago.
And I'm not bashing public school teachers. I truly believe most of them are wonderful teachers who love what they do and love the kids they teach. My children have had some excellent teachers who I definitely trust with their education. I have a good friend who teaches. My beef is with the school system itself. I believe that the system has crippled itself, its staff, and is thus crippling the kids. In order to please a few, I think some important things are being swept aside. I don't feel like going much more into it. I just felt like I needed to get that out of my system.
Anyway....here are some pictures of what sorts of things we've been up to - just to prove Bart wrong. Also, please refer to pictures from previous posts. I believe I have made my point.

A Day at the Beach

A few days after the family reunion, Mindy and Kevin and their kids, Mary and her kids, and Tom and Renee came over for wing night. Mindy and Kevin cooked A LOT of wings, and I prepared side dishes. George and Kevin took all the children to the elementary school before dinner to drive George's remote control truck and fly his airplanes while Mary and I went to get some groceries at WalMart. It's been a long time since we've seen Mary, so it was nice to hang out with her. Also, we haven't seen Zach, Garrett, and Katie in about two years, so it was unbelievable how grown up they are. George and Zach played several games of chess while they were staying with us, and Zach actually beat him (Go, Zach!). We gave the children mini ice cream cones and Bubble Yum ice cream, which they loved.
Everyone except Tom spent the night. The adults played a board game and the children all bedded down in the playroom. The following morning, we got up and all headed to the beach (except poor George, who had to go to work). We went to Emerald Isle, stopping for lunch at an Andy's in Swansboro beforehand. It was pretty funny when we walked into that Andy's. I don't think they'd seen that many kids come in at once before, but they handled it pretty well. And I do have to say that our children behaved themselves very well.










OK, so there was some mild goofiness involved, but on the whole, it was pretty tame. Drake even consented to sitting two whole booths away from me (which means I got to eat a good deal of my food in peace) because he got to sit at the "boys' table" and drink lemonade out of his own big boy cup and straw.
After lunch, we hit the beach...



The kids boogey-boarded and swam. The water was really rough, though. It was so rough, it actually knocked both Skylar and me flat on our rumps one time. Every time a wave crashed into us, it glued little tiny shells to our skin. A week later, I was still having sand and shell pieces spill out of the lint trap in my dryer.



When the waves got too rough for them, Bart and Mack began to build a tide pool with another little girl they befriended. It was quite an endeavor, one that literally took hours. I was really surprised that Bart put as much patience and concentration into it as he did. He really puts a lot of thought and effort into building things, though.










Drake stayed close by me or Mindy and looked for shells. He did a lot of digging, too.

It ended up being quite a nice excursion. The children were all really tired when we drove back in the late afternoon. We stopped for ice cream in Swansboro along the way. Once we arrived back at our house, we showered and then warmed up leftover wings and mac'n'cheese from the night before.

By bedtime, I think we were all utterly exhausted (at least I know I was), but I think everyone had a really good time. It was well worth the drive and the ten pounds of sand and shell bits we drug back with us and deposited onto my carpet. There just really is nothing like the feeling you have when you get home after a long day at the beach. You might be tired, slightly sunburned, sticky from the salt water, and chafing from all the sand down your bathing suit bottom, but it all is somehow worth it as you sit there at the end of the day, all sun-warmed and drowsy.
There is nothing like summertime!