OIB oh how I miss you

The remaining Ocean Isle Beach pics to share...oh how I miss it!

Fun times at the pool ~ we've all agreed there's no going back to non-pool status now!

Kennedy and her Aunt Melissa:

She did this approximately 2,135 times while we were there:

oh yeah...incoming!

Cheese!

We weren't all four in once place much this year, you better believe the one time we were - I got a picture!

Tim brought along his water proof work camera and took this cool picture of Maggie:

Clearly he couldn't resist snapping this oh.so.wonderful.and.flattering self portrait! Ha! That's my man for ya...ladies: I'm sorry, but - he's taken!

I put Avery in the pool twice and she was pretty much just like "ok..whatever". She soooo doesn't appear to have my personality. I suppose it's only fair since Kennedy is my mini-me.

Some pool time with Daddy.

Check out the little bitty board shorts with the fat leg rolls oozing out of the bottom. Too cute! My mom got this little swimsuit at a consignment sale and it was precious on her.

Catherine, Aunt Melissa & Kennedy...according to Catherine..she's the "cool aunt".

Speaking of cool...this is what I got when I asked these girls to pose. Too funny! You like Kennedy's pointed finger...apparently it was crucial to the posing.

Maggie is a baby lovin' fool - she wanted to feed Avery, hold Avery and love, love, love on her while we were there.

COUSINS! These girls are the best of friends and I adore that they love each other so much.

It wasn't the best bottle feeding experience (note the flailing arm), but at least Maggie got to try.

Uncle Steve gettin' some practice. Avery was SMITTEN with him. I think he's got the MOJO. Good thing because Declan will be here in September.

Matching shirts from Nana. Sweet sisters.

Grandmomma aka "Honey" getting some one on one smile-time with Avery.

My Mom checked out some library books for the kids and this was a Skippyjon Jones book - it had a bit of  "Latin flair" (if you will) so we put the Spanish teacher on reading duty. He did such a fine job that the kids and the adults were laughing.  

My Mom and my girls. They do love their Honey.

This is pretty much what the majority of us did on vacation. I looked up at one point when I was on the beach and thought "I've got to have a picture of this". So: Jim snapped one for me.

My baby girl was and still is "pre-teething" if there even is such a thing. She is gnawing on EVERYTHING and drooling and on an off running a low grade fever. She wasn't too interested in the beach what with all the not being able to sit up, extremely bright sunshine in her face and sand blowing in her direction...what's not to love when you're a little bitty lump, right? So after this one day of taking her to the shore, she did not return. She got in the pool a couple of times but mainly she napped, ate and slept with some playing and cuddling in between. I'm glad we got these pics when we did. :)

On our last night in Ocean Isle we went on a double date with Melissa and Steve. It was really nice to be out with just adults (thanks Mom for keeping the kiddos) and the seafood restaraunt where we ate was yummy. Since dates are seemingly now a thing of the past I had Melissa take a picture. Who knows when we'll have another.

If Kennedy could sum up her time at the beach with cousins she would say BEST.WEEK.EVER and then she would yawn and fall flat over out of sheer exhaustion. Something a little like this: 

She played her little heart out. Two separate times while we were there she fell asleep WHILE I was blowdrying her hair...like slipping off my lap fell asleep. As soon as we pulled away from her cousins house where we stopped to break up the trip on the return she looked at me and said "Mom, when we will see cousins again?" *Sigh*..."I'm not sure honey...soon, I hope!"

Ocean Isle Beach

On July 8th we headed south to Ocean Isle Beach for the week with my family. It's become an annual tradition and I look forward to it ALL YEAR ROUND! Because I knew that this year was going to be a tad more...let's say..."involved" due to having sweet little Avery - we decided splitting the trip up was a must. We left Kentucky on Friday and stopped in Greenville, SC to stay with my friend Leslie. I started planning that stopping point a few weeks back when I realized it was practically on the way and new that as a bonus I'd get to see some friends I hadn't seen in a while.
Leslie and Hollis are two friends of mine from Veterinary Technology school. There was a time when we spent almost every moment together...most of those moments filled with studying, talking about veterinary stuff and even more of those moments being filled with laughing so hard our cheeks and abs were sore afterwards. We've kept in touch which is something I'm so incredibly thankful for, however, they are both in SC so I don't see them nearly as often as I'd like. I got to see Leslie not too long ago when her husband was doing some work in WV. It had been too long since I'd seen Hollis - it was at her wedding! So...we were all thrilled that my stop in Greenville would allow us to all get together for a bit. Leslie was kind enough to host and cook a yummy mexican supper and Hollis drove to Greenville from Columbia to join us. It was such a great time and we all hope to do it again soon. My how times have changed...if I had a scanner, I would add an old pic from vet tech school...here we are with our kiddos.

Leslie & Brady      Hollis & Benton

Kennedy had been so excited about going to the beach! I am happy that she loves it so much and even happier that this year she could assist in getting the "gear" to and from the beach. Hello back pack chairs - I do so love you!

Clearly we have some Tiger fans in this family - Maggie, Catina and Melissa representin' Clemson...beach style. ;)

I think if Kennedy could have slept and ate in the water she would have.

Again with the Tiger support....this is my sister Catina and her family..minus her older daughter.

A little wave jumping

and waiting for the next...

so tickled

Each of my sisters, my Mom, and I take a night to prepare dinner, but we leave some nights for going out. One night we went to a place called the Provision Company..it was right on the water and the view was beautiful. I was kind of tickled by the signs over the bathrooms so I took a pic ~(4u2pn)~

Catina and her family:

My Mom and Jim

Melissa, Steve..and Baby Declan (making his arrival sometime in early September).

Mags and Catina...it kills me how big my nieces are getting!

There are so many more pictures to share. We had such a good time...it's just always so hard to go. To be continued...

Our Holiday Weekend

We had a fun filled fourth of July weekend. Busy, but fun!  First up was canoeing down the Elkhorn river. It was a birthday/fathers day gift to Tim and he and I were excited to share our love of canoeing with Kennedy for the first time. Not that you would have known it was her first time though - she acted as though it wasn't her first roday-o. She's such a turkey!

Now that she's had swiiming lessons, she thinks she's Michael Phelps and therefore wanted to spend the ENTIRE time swimming rather than canoeing. I kept trying to remind her that Avery would be waiting for us, so we needed to keep going but she couldn't be bothered with such nonsense...not with all the paddling and kicking and whatehaveyou to be done. I kindly obliged and let me tell you that is something because Momma...she doesn't like being in her bathing suit so much right now thank you very much.

Daddy showed her crawdads and water bugs and a snake (oh yeah...totally didn't deter her from wanting to swim) and she loved every.single.minute.of.it!

We had a really good time and we are so thankful that we have a little outdoors girlie - she fits right in!

Abby and Jonathan kindly kept Avery for us while we took Kennedy canoeing. According to them, she was a good girl. We were so grateful they were willing to keep her. Two babies is no joke but they handled it like pros, though I hear they got some strange glances when they took the pair out to Kroger. They had a little impromptu photo session with Avery and Adalyn in their matching outfits that I got them at the Bella Bliss Warehouse sale that was held here in Lexington recently. How cute are they?

Oh my holy sweetness - this one of them looking at each other. Sigh!

Once we returned home from canoeing we basically showered and headed straight back out to a 4th of July party at a friends house. For once, I got Avery to wear a bow and not cry her eyes out. I mean, let's just face it - despite LOVING bows there is really no reason to make your kid cry over it so I had basically given up. On Saturday I really wanted her to have some red, white, and blue on for the party so I thought "what the heck, I'll try one more time" and for whatever reason she totally didn't care. So..because of that fact, we've worn a bow every day since because Momma like's bows and as it turns out Momma's in charge. ;)

All dressed up for the partay!

Can we talk about the fact that both girls are looking and smiling in this picture. Amazing!

Oh yeah...snapped this one too.

He was totally "dancing" with her at the party. Sweet!

This next picture was taken before the fireworks started and we were sweating because it was SOOO hot. Much to my shock, Avery totally watched the entire fireworks show while laying in my lap, but Kennedy went inside because it was "too loud". Thanks to "Auntie Courtney" for sitting with Kennedy while Tim, Avery and I watched the show outside.

Speaking of Courtney.....so good to hang out with her and Tammy again so soon to our last outing together. Tammy hosted the party at her house and it had wonderful yummy food and an AMAZING fireworks show. Her husband pulled out all the fireworks stops.

Sunday was spent catching up on rest and running errands. Kennedy got a little hair cut too. The swimming lessons totally fried her hair so we were in need of a trim to get things back to normal.

On Monday we woke up and went berry picking at Reed Valley Orchard in Paris. A friend told me about the place and we LOVED it. It wasn't commercialized and crawling with people like some of the other local orchards. It was just good ole country people and a really big farm. Their prices were really reasonable too. Here are Tim and Kennedy picking blueberries.

Poor Avery couldn't hang on but I didn't want to miss out on the fruit picking action! She slept pretty much through the entire outing. Sweet baby.

We picked some serious fruit loot...get it? Ha ha...like fruit loop? It's late...

We had planned to only pick blueberries but they had raspberries and blackberries ready to be picked too, so while we were there we picked those too. None of us had picked those before so it was cool to get to do that together. Kennedy was a bit too rough with the raspberries and blackberries so Tim had to really help her be gentle with them.

Inside the little country store where (they sold everything canned you could imagine) we checked out they had a little cafe that made homemade no sugar added ice cream with their in season fruit. Kennedy decided she wanted to try the blueberry ice cream and she shared some with Tim and I - YUM!

It was a fun trip and cool experience. We will definitely go back there in the future. Thankfully the weather was overcast too so it wasn't too dreadfully hot.

Monday night we went over to Billie and Derek's for a little Independence Day celebration. Billie had set out the pool for the kids and had the deck all ready to just hang out, eat and socialize. We took a homemade blueberry pie (made from our pickin's) and banana pudding. In all my rush to get two kids and two desserts out the door, I totally forgot to grab Kennedy's bathing suit. Luckily, Eli was willing to share some of his clothes with her:

They seemed to have a big ole' time together. I can't believe how big Eli is getting.

I think this picture is funny. Here all the Mom's are bending over the pool while the Dad's sit around and drink beer and watch. Every now and then (with our prompting) one would snap a picture but other than that we were all sweating and getting wet while they relaxed. Hey, no one said parenting was always glamorous right? I just think this sums it up in a funny way:

Avery's first time in a swimsuit and first swim:

She was just chillaxin'

You know Adalyn would be rockin' something totally appropriate for the holiday. This girl is a doll!

And then there's my crazy almost 4 year old. Real lady-like, right? *Sigh* She's crazy!

...but she's real sweet too...

Tim had purchased some sparklers for her to play with when we got home that night and when I put her to bed and we were re-living the weekend in bedtime talk she told me that the sparklers were her FAVORITE thing from the weekend. It's the little things.....

It has been operation pack as much as you can as fast as you can around here tonight. We are prepping for our trip to Ocean Isle Beach, NC. I'm so tired I'm about to fall asleep on the keyboard, but I'm so excited to be going to see family! I'm sure to have lots of beachy goodness to share when I return so I wanted to get this posting finished. It was an awesome weekend...fun with family and fun with friends. The only downside was that it ended. ;)