50th Surprise

Brian's first cousin Brandon turned the big 5-0 last week, and we went up to North Carolina to attend his surprise party.  He was definitely surprised.  Brandon's wife Sandy really went all out.  She had lots of people come from out of town to surprise him, and she had tons of food brought in.  It was really well-planned.  We enjoyed our visit immensely.  We got to catch up with all of the family and meet some other really great people.  Melanie rode up with us, and she also had a really good time.

Since we were only an hour and a half away from Carowinds, we decided to check out the park.  Carowinds is home to Fury 325 (which is the current #1 steel coaster in the world) and Intimidator (current #8 steel coaster). This was the kids first giga-coaster (over 300 feet).  We were impressed with the park overall.  There was a solid line-up of coasters and a good balance of other rides as well.  They also had an attached water park that we visited during the middle of the day because it was sweltering.  The good news is that the heat kept a lot of people in the water park all day, so the lines for the rides in the amusement park were relatively short.

We had such a great weekend, and we can't wait to see everyone again.

Beach Collage

I had so many great pictures from the beach this year, that I've decided to post a few more.

The Deep End

 The kids spent a lot of time in the pool this year.  Unlike years past, a lot of time was spent in the deep end this year.  We had some diving toys, and the kids played with those quite a bit.  Owen, Audrey, and Julianna all made great gains during the week, and were all swimming along with the other kids by the end of the week.

 Audrey went from not wanting to swim in the deep end to going all over the place.

 Julianna was swimming underwater well by the end of the week.

Owen started swimming underwater and diving.  I feel much better about his swimming abilities now than I did before our vacation.

Fishing Week

 Brian always refers to beach week as "fishing week" because that is his favorite vacation activity.  He spends most of his time on the pier.  The kids have also caught the fishing bug, and this is also their number one beach activity. Brian and the kids caught lots of fish (and a couple of sharks) this week.

 A lot of the fishing happens at night.  I think that our crew cleaned Walmart out of all the their headlamps.

Of course, the expectation is that the kids will do all of the "dirty work" themselves- including baiting their hooks, handling the fish, and even some cleaning.  

I'm glad that the kids like doing this with their dad.

The Beach

 Sitting on the beach is my favorite thing to do during the week.  I would usually go down after lunch and stay about 3 hours or so.  The kids came to the beach several times as well.  Their favorite thing to do on the beach is boogie board.  Here are some of my favorite beach pictures from this year.

 Gigi bought the older girls matching swimsuits, and they looked super-cute.

Beach Vacation 2017

 We have just returned from our annual beach vacation on Amelia Island.  We had the most wonderful time.  In all we had a total of 32 people (12 kids) in 5 different condos.  Our family had our own condo this year, and that was really nice.  We were also on the bottom floor- which is my preference.  The best part, though, was that Olivia and Owen were finally old enough to go to the pool / pier / their cousin's condo on their own, so Brian and I had more time to do the things we wanted to do (fishing for him, sitting on the beach for me).  The week was so relaxing.

Shrek the Musical

 One of the things that we look forward to each summer is attending a performance of the Peach State Summer Theater with Granny Mel.  This year's production was Shrek the Musical.  It was so entertaining.  The kids loved it.  While all of the actors were fantastic, the kids liked Lord Farquad the best.  The actor playing him had to walk on his knees the whole time, and this just made the character really funny. While we were in Valdosta we had a nice meal and went to Books-a-Million, so it was just an all-around fun day.