Labor Day Pool Party

I'm always sad when it's time for the pool to close because we love going swimming so much.  This has a been a great year for Fielder and he's made so much progress.  We never were able to fit in swim lessons, but he has figured out his own style of swimming - on his back! He can go across the width of the pool and back.  As always, Claire loves to swim and would spend the entire day there if she could.

We went to the Labor Day party and had lunch.  They had a DJ, hula hoop contests, and $1 root beer floats.  It's a happy end to the summer!  Plus we get 2 bonus weekends that the pool will open, however I'm writing this on one of those weekends and so far the weather has not cooperated. 

Topsail Memories

We hit the road for the beach (made it out of the house ahead of schedule because of my awesome car-packing skills!) and the kids were ready to go!  They were really good in the car, excited for a Chick-fil-a lunch and then a little ipad time until we got to the house.  Stopping for lunch has always been chaotic - I would say this was our best year yet although I think I spent more time taking kids in and out of the bathroom than actually eating my lunch.  We got to Miss Sandbridge, unpacked, and settled in for a week of fun!  Our first night was our BBQ dinner and then we took the kids out on the beach "for a walk."  They immediately were in the ocean and soaking wet.  They were just so excited, they couldn't help themselves!
 

Miss Sandbridge served us well again this year!  The girls shared a bed in one room and Fielder had his own "room" - which was his crib mattress in our closet!  The first night was a disaster, but after that it actually worked out pretty good.  

I have so many pictures and can't decide what my favorites are!  (Click on collages to make them bigger.)

The kids spotted a pirate flag right out in front of our house one morning where our mountain/sand volcano was and we ran out to see what was going on.  It turns out pirates had buried their treasure there.  They found gold and silver doubloons and tattoos.  We decided to capture their flag and hang it on our house!  Then another morning we found more treasure...pirate poop!  (The pirates must have known how much Fielder loved that word this week and played a joke on him!) 

Other than searching for pirate treasure, there was lots of shell collecting this year (especially by Andy!) and a few shark teeth found...Claire found the best one of all by the way!  They had their big hole/mountain which lasted all week for the kids to play in as well as several other sand castles.

Kite flying one windy morning...mostly went well although there was a lot of bickering over the 3 kids sharing 2 kites!

They loved the water this year!  I couldn't get Claire out of it and Fielder again had no fear.  Earlier this summer there were numerous shark attacks so I was pretty nervous with water above the ankles, but that did not deter the kids!

Claire made a good friend, Abby, who was staying a couple houses down.  She and her brother were both really nice kids and we had fun with them!  Claire and Abby would have stayed in the water playing and boogie boarding all day if we let them!  They exchanged emails at the end of the week and now Claire has a pen pal in North Carolina!

Fielder did pretty good this year - in the past he had a max time limit before he was asking to go inside, but this year he would stay out all morning with us.  That was mostly thanks to Samara.  He followed her around and did whatever she did.  They were so cute together!  I think if you ask him though, he'd say his favorite thing of all was the outside shower with Aunt Tara and Samara!  He of course wanted to do what Samara was doing so Aunt Tara helped him shower off and the kids took turns singing silly songs.  Claire stuck with the hose all week (with soap) and I'm not too embarrassed to admit neither kid ever got a proper bath inside the house all week!  

 On Thursday, we woke up to thunder and it was very overcast so we decided to do a family trip into Wilmington to the Childrens Museum.  Rob had taken Fielder a few times in past summers, but Claire and I decided to join them this time. They had so much to do and the kids loved it.

One evening after dinner we decided to go on the beach with glow sticks and a fun glowing/flying thing Andy had found.  It's rare for Fielder to be awake late enough during the summer for it to be dark so when he saw the dark clouds he thought it was scary!  No buddy, it's just that we're letting you stay up past 7:00 :-)  

Other nights we didn't want the kids to get all sandy again so we'd stick to playing on the deck or art projects inside.  Surprisingly there were NO games of Go Fish, Uno, or anything with the kids this year!!  Andy did find a dice game that was cool and the adults played it a little, but we were so tired at night we would go to bed early.  (Sometimes Rob would get stuck in our bedroom until 9:00 waiting for Fielder to go to sleep.  When Rob would try to sneak out, Fielder would yell "where are you going?!")

We had some delicious dinners that week - seafood night, beef tenderloin, grilled shrimp and chicken ceaser salads, and fajitas (and of course great beachy cocktails too!)  I think I won the award for most destroyed kitchen on my fajita night.  (THANKS DAD!)

One night I played a little joke on the kids and said we had run out of dessert and I was going to go on the beach and find something for us.  I came back with a bucket of "sand."  They were dumbfounded at first until they started sticking their fingers in it and we let them in on the secret that it was a real dessert.  (The next night Fielder asked me to go on the beach and find him something yummy.)  Dad got the kids ice cream for the last night which we had out on the deck and then he gave us our matching t-shirts!

Another summer vacation in the books.  Thanks to Mom and Dad for taking us again this year and to the whole crew for making it a such a great week!

TOPSAIL 2015!

We are back from our week in Topsail and as always, we had a wonderful time!  It was our 8th summer in Topsail and it was so fun to hear Claire talk about her memories of previous summers. The kids had a blast, especially getting to spend so much time with their cousin Samara.  Lots of memories to post about, but first I wanted to post our family beach pictures that Andy took.  I'll hold off on the entire family shot because I'm guessing it may appear on a Mason Christmas card.

(Fielder is yelling his favorite word of the week...we were allowing it in an attempt to get him to smile...can you guess what it is?)

These were taken on our last night after dinner.  Papa came through with cool shirts for everyone!

More to come!  I'm loving looking through all the pictures now while I'm home with the post-vacation-blues.  I sure miss the beautiful view, my toes in the sand, and a "beachy" cocktail right about now.

Summer

It's been a busy, but fun summer.  Rob was out of town for 4 weeks during June and July so it's somewhat of a blur!

Fielder has kept to his normal routine at school and 4 months after starting, I'm happy to say he's finally settled in and no longer cries every morning at drop off!  This is mostly thanks to discovering "magical no-cry mints" although after we've been out of town on vacation for the last week, I have no idea how Monday morning will go.  I better pack some extra mints.


Claire has finished up all of her weeks of camp and has 1 more "Mimi week" before school starts. She's had 3 other weeks with Mimi (we call those weeks Summer School so Fielder won't get jealous.)  She did several sessions of indoor camps and several sessions of the more traditional outdoor camp.  Lots of fun activities - she comes home dirty and very tired!  I think the Mimi weeks have been her favorites.  They have been to the science museum, Lewis Ginter, the pool, movies, out for lunches and ice cream, slumber parties with Samara, and shopping trips.  She's had a blast and Mom has helped out tremendously while Rob was out of town.

Claire with her purchases from a Barnes and Noble shopping trip.  (She used Christmas money from Popa and Abu - thanks!!)

We stayed extra busy during the first half of summer break with swim team.  I only made it to 1 practice - it was a true team effort to get her there.  Rob, Mimi, and Popa all pitched in to make sure she got to practices.  Swim meets....phew, those took even more work.  She did great though and really seemed to enjoy it - never once complained and was always willing to do what her coaches asked.  She won several personal record ribbons and her end of season award was for always coming to practice ready to go and with a positive attitude!
Here's the only photos I took at a meet....I think they show perfectly how exhausting, long, and HOT those meets were!

We made it to the river with the Hulchers and Masons for a day during the 4th of July weekend.  We packed in as much fun stuff as we could in 1 day before we had to go home.  We had a neighborhood pool party on the 4th and then Rob had to pack it up to leave for a 2 week trip to Columbus.

boat ride to Sandy Point where we played on the beach!

swimming in the "hot pool" - NOT your normal relaxing soak in a jacuzzi, but they had fun!  

Fielder at the 4th of July pool party.  They provided a great lunch for everyone and luckily the rain held off!

7-11 day!

We also went to Popa's river house in July.  The kids had their first real fishing trip and we actually caught a few fish!  Claire "caught" the first one and then promptly decided she was done and went inside.  Fielder dropped his pole in the water several times, caught a crab, and helped with a few fish.

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 **NOT our flag in that picture, that would be the neighbor's!

In August, we stayed busy with work and kids' schedules, a few weekend playdates with Claire's good friend from school and even a visit with Uncle Matt, Katie, and Jenna!  Of course, the big event in August was our trip to Topsail, but that will get it's own post.

Happy Summer!  1 week til it's BACK TO SCHOOL!

strawberry pickin'

Looks like I forgot to hit "publish" on this one!  Here's a few pics from our strawberry picking adventure back in June.  We tried a new place (new to us) and loved it.  We were really late in the season so the strawberries were small and harder to find, but the kids loved it and we had plenty for strawberry shortcake that night at dinner!