truman time

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Outer Banks

A couple weeks ago we went on a family vacation to Outer Banks (North Carolina beach). Mark's brother and sister and their families joined us at the beach house. This is my journal of the trip so I have to give a WARNING...this will be LONG!

There was nothing like the feeling the first night when we drove up to our awesome beach house, unloaded the cars and walked only a couple hundred yards to the beach. We walked up the stairs

and were SOOO excited!! Yea, the beach for one whole week!!!
It was a party!
And pretty much all we did was hang out all day on the beach.
We played in the sand... and ran, jumped and played in the waves...

We flew kites and launched water balloons...
Joe and Mark surfed...
and these two couldn't get enough of boogie-boarding...
The kids got a little brave out there in the water.

until Tommy got a little too brave, lost his footing and was stuck in a rip current. Mark (and another girl) swam out to help him. I got a little nervous because I could tell Mark kept trying to get him in and couldn't. It was scary!

I didn't know there were life guards on this beach, but there was one a ways down that saw Tommy through his binoculars (thank goodness)!He rescued them!

Whoa!! Talk about drama!!! It was crazy (and even worse to look at the pictures now and think what could have happened!) Tommy was relieved to be out of the water...But he was exhausted!
He and Rachel headed back to the house to rest. About 5 mins later, a lifeguard came back and gave all the kids (and adults) a lesson on rip currents. It was awesome! We now know what to do if we are caught in one again (hopefully not!) . Swim to the side, NOT against the current!!
On a lighter note, one evening, Suzy took some family pictures on the beach.

In fact, we took LOTS of pictures!!

There's nothing like 12 kids playing on the beach...
Rachel

Tommy

Sam

Megan

Jessica

Jacob

Maggie

Sophie

Wes

Truman

Kate

and last but not least, baby Grey!

Since there wasn't a lot to do for entertainment on this little island, we created our own. At night, if you take a flashlight to the beach, you can find tons of "ghost crabs" on the sand. After the kids were tucked in bed, Rachel and Tommy babysat while we had a couples crab hunting contest. Here's are some pictures of us in auto mode on my camera, thus the silly faces...

Mark and I were first. We had three mins to get as many crabs as we could.

It wasn't as easy as it looks. It was really, really dark and the crabs were really really fast! But Mark and I got six.

Here are the little beauties...

Next was Joe and Suzy...

They got two!

But Joe swore there must be another one in the sand hiding so we had to slowly empty out the bucket...

Nope, only two, so on to Mike and Marci...

They tied us with six.

But, we decided they won, they had a biggest crab. Yuck! But it was a good time!

Joe was the candy man....we had so much candy. I don't think I can ever eat a coconut m&m again! :)

And Suzy won the girls hearts with the candy bracelets!

I love these next pictures of Mark....heading to the beach

and then relaxing on the beach...

because that really is what this vacation was about....heading to the beach and then relaxing and playing on the beach. The last night we enjoyed a beautiful thunderstorm and said goodbye to the beach house and a great vacation!

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Haircut...

After Jessica gave her little pony a hair cut, she turned the scissors on herself...

I was really sad about the curls that she cut off...

but she did a pretty good job and now has some cute bangs! :)

All I keep thinking is it could've been worse!!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Megan allergic to French Toast???

This morning was the last day of school. I had to go to school with the boys to attend their awards ceremony. Megan woke up and was a little cranky, but wanted to eat. I made her some French toast. She ate it up and then I quickly got her ready. She was whining while I was doing her hair and told me she thought she wasn't feeling well. I brushed it off because there was no time to be sick, we had to go. I got everyone else ready (while she was still whining) and we got in the car and headed to school. She kept complaining about feeling sick. I started to believe her and told the boys that I wouldn't be able to make it to their awards ceremony, I felt like I needed to take Megan home. That was a good decision because Megan didn't even make it all the way home! Luckily, I saw the look in her face and pulled over just in time for her to get out of the car and empty her stomach. I could tell she felt much better when she got back in the car and she said, "Mom, I think I'm allergic to French toast!" I had to laugh! But, now I think I might agree with her. She has been great all day, not sick a bit and eating everything! Either she IS allergic to French toast or it was a quick few hour flu.

Anyway, school is now officially OVER!! Yea!! We are all so excited! No more homework, projects, schedules, running around, etc. for a couple months. We definitely need to come up with some goals and a schedule to keep us from going crazy, but I'm excited for the change. Here are some pics of the last events of the year...

Rachel's award night was last week. Here we are...

and here is Rachel and her Grandma Lu....

Megan graduated from preschool! She's on to Kindergarten next year (makes me cry!)

Megan (with her eyes closed) and her teachers...

And then the boys...I wasn't able to get pics of them at the awards ceremony because of Megan's allergy! :) But here they are at home, with their awards...