EVERY WEEK THERE'S SOMETHING NEW

Ok... so life has been BUSY! Every week there has been something new and fun. My Grandparent's came in town, Kalea did little summer day camps for a week, and of course our favorite... a visit from Aunt Cerah and her munchkins! We love it when Cerah comes in town. Not only do we get to fun stuff with William, Hannah, and Helena... but Cerah got to meet Landen. Oh... sweet Auntie decided to paint Landen's toenails, put hair bows on him, and dress him up in a number of ways. Including the crown below and a feather indian hat.

*These pictures are from our trip to Marbles Museum*

*Sorry Cherre... I HAD to!*

After Cerah left to go back to Utah, my cousin Kahea came in town with her 3 kids. Sadly, no pictures were taken, but the kids had a blast playing and driving their parents crazy.

Ok... so Kalea goes back to Virginia and we start a-packin for the beach! This is our first year taking our own little family vacation by ourselves. We rented out a condo at Tiffany's and stayed there for 4 nights, 5 days. They were doing a special where you pay for 3 nights and get the 4th night free. But for some reason they didn't book us for the 4th night and had reserved our room for someone else. So naturally, they upgraded us to a King Suite and it was AWESOME! (minus our neighbors who thought partying late into the night was "cool". Of course I knocked on their door and told them to keep it down. )

This little boy LOVED the sand and the water. We would look over at him and he had handfuls of sand in his hands just eating away. He really loved going out into the waves with Christian. Which makes me nervous. FYI: I'm VERY VERY paranoid when it comes to the ocean. It could be because I got caught in an under toe as a kid, it could be because I have this unnatural fear that my sea is going to take my children from me. I'm not quite sure. But I never go past my waist. And when the girls aren't really paying attention to what they're doing... my anxiety level goes WAAAAAY up.

So here was our first place...

Here is the view from our new room. It was beautiful and very peaceful.

...And this is our upgrade :)

We spent most of our days at the pool or the beach. I bought Kalea and Mia some water-wings so they swim and kick all by themselves. It's really nice I cause I don't have to worry about them. And Landen just loves to float along on his lily pad. The last day we went for a walk on the pier. It was fun to watch all the surfers up close. They were even more impressed that their daddy knows how to surf too!

So straight from the Topsail Island we drove to Wilmington to the Aquarium. Ok... in case you didn't know... it takes awhile to get to the Aquarium. We thought it might take maybe 30 minutes. It was over an hour! Once we got there we went in and saw a few things. But not long after Mia starting complaining about being hungry and thirsty. So we walked back to the car and went looking for picnic benches to eat on. Um... we must have parked in a mosquito's nest because we were ATTACKED! I'm talking in the car, all over us... it was crazy. So we decided to go to McDonald's instead. And instead of going back to the Aquarium we just decided to drive home. It was way too much excitement and craziness for the end of the trip. We were ready to go home and relax.

It was a fun trip but exhausting. When we got home and Christian and I were laying around, I looked at him and said, "I need a vacation." It's a lot of work when there are 3 small children involved. Lots of melt downs and naps. But also lots of early bed times, Popsicles, laughs, and memories.