We took advantage of a rainy day to visit Wilmington, NC, where we had lunch at The Oceanic.
After, we explored the town—and had ice cream.
“In my mind I’m goin’ to Carolina
Can’t you see the sunshine
Can’t you just feel the moonshine
Ain’t it just like a friend of mine
It hit me from behind
Yes I’m gone to Carolina in my mind.” —James Taylor
Ocean Isle Beach, NC
Our little bumblebee spent hours digging in the sand.
Pop Pop and James
sweet Colleen, always with her thumb in her mouth
My mom made beautiful (reversible!) sun bonnets for each grandchild.
I absolutely love this picture. Drunk on cold milk, napping on the beautiful beach quilt my mom made, listening to the sound of waves crashing, seagulls calling and Sophie laughing.
My parents watched all four children while Katy, Tom, Andy and I enjoyed the water.
the Rees family
Sophie, thrilled to be spending an entire week with Daddy.
Our brave Sophie—it took a lot of encouraging words to get her to venture into the water some days, and even then, we often had to hold her. “Swing me! Dip me! Swing me! Dip me!” Tired arms followed.
I love Sophie in pigtails. She hates them.
I could have spent hours, every day, at the beach with Sophie.
Sophie also loved making, what she called, mud puddles. Every day, we dug these for her. She’s quite particular in how they’re made, however—and how fast her construction workers worked.
My idea of beach heaven.
Sophie’s idea of beach heaven.
James tolerated sitting in the sand. Owen did not.
sunset
playground fun
We celebrated a belated Father’s Day with my dad.
Katy makes the best cards.
He’s excited about his Paul McCartney tickets.
The boys doing the thing they love most—standing on a couch and looking out a window.
The boys doing the second thing they love most—drinking milk.
a sweet nap
cousins conversing
beautiful Colleen
Andy “watching” the boys.
I love when a day simply requires a blanket, some towels, a chair, flip-flops and a kite.
Sophie
The kite flying was a bit anti-climatic—perhaps Sophie will enjoy it more when she’s older.
sandy shoes
Somehow Sophie always got the beach chair—and I always got the sand.
One hot afternoon, while the boys napped, Sophie and I went shopping and stopped for ice cream (this is her second scoop—there was an unfortunate mishap with the first).
We came back to find Katy and Colleen relaxing in the hammock.
Sophie fell asleep snuggled up with me—I can’t remember the last time this happened.
This was the view from our back deck.
Strawberry shortcake for dessert, which Sophie loved.
Sophie staying up late …
playing hide-and-go-seek with Dad.
This was the boys’ first time in a pool. Thank goodness for grandparents as we certainly needed an extra set of arms.
It was Colleen’s first time in a pool, too!
a Sophie-sized beach towel
James enjoying the pool deck more so than the pool.
Out of all the toys we brought, the kids loved the “pillow pile” the best.
Uncle Tom made a pretty cool fort for the kids—that was popular, too.
my dad
my mom
cousins and siblings
grandparents and grandchildren
Katy, Tom and Colleen
Mom and Dad
my kids
my family
“Find what brings you joy and go there.” —Jan Phillips
James has no idea he has a 12-hour car ride ahead of him. (Andy is tying the gate to the top of the van, after we ran out of room inside of the van.)
I’m pretty sure I packed most everything baby-related in the house.
We listened to Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” and the boys laugh and cry, and Sophie laugh and ask how much longer (over and over and over) throughout the drive. We also managed to drive through tar, which Andy had to scrape off with a tire iron (he didn’t want to use the tire iron, but resorted to it after stepping in a mound of fire ants and through poison ivy while trying to find a suitable stick, instead). Somehow, stuff like this always happens to us on car trips.
Sometimes, the beach seemed very far away. To all of us. But all in all, Sophie did as well as can be expected considering she’s 3. Especially because she refused to play with any of her toys (including a new one, gifted to her from us specifically for the trip) or watch any of her DVDs on the portable DVD player because, as she said, she wanted to “save them all for the beach.” So, for the most part, she sat in her seat and looked out the window the entire drive, despite our repeated attempts to convince her that it was OK to play with her toys and watch her shows during the drive and at the beach. Andy claims this personality trait, unreasonable stubbornness, is my fault. Stubbornness, maybe. Unreasonable, no. I’m sure, in her mind, her patience was entirely reasonable. But oh did it make for a long trip for her. I still don’t know how she did it.
We ended up spending the night at Katy and Tom’s house, in Winston-Salem, NC. We arrived around 2am. Katy and Tom graciously moved Colleen to their room, and I put James in Colleen’s crib, Owen in Colleen’s pack-and-play, and then spent two hours trying to convince them that it was 2am, not morning. I ended up sleeping, in my clothes, in the nursery’s glider. We were up at 7am (why is it children never sleep in?) and on the road again.
More Dickens. More laughing. More crying. More not playing or watching anything (other than the passing scenery outside the van windows, growing more and more ocean-like the longer we drove) from Sophie.
I think car trips are most difficult for crawlers. An infant’s idea of stretching is simply being held. A toddler or child’s idea of stretching is running around (easy to do at a rest stop). But a crawler needs to crawl and clean crawling space is often difficult to come by. So stops for food often turned into outdoor picnics—here we’re eating at a school, closed up for the summer. (And here, although still many miles away, we could finally smell the ocean. I loved that.)
We made it—our beach house in Ocean Isle Beach, NC.
Owen meeting his cousin Colleen for the first time.
Owen shoving his finger in Colleen’s eye for the first time.
All four children seeing the ocean for the first time.
James eating sand for the first time.
And I cried, for the first of many times, during this trip. I spent many summer vacations as a child at the beach. And even as a little girl I knew, someday, I would take my family to the ocean. And I crave the ocean. And it had been a long time. And something about the heavy ocean-scented air; and watching Sophie, wide-eyed as she took in the enormity of it all; and seeing the small marks my sons made as they crawled through shell-littered sand for the first time; and putting the tip of my finger in my mouth so as to taste the salt (as I always do)—I was overcome. And grateful. And suddenly, the long drive and lack of sleep seemed totally, totally worth it.
“Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.” —E.B. White
