Last month we took a 10 day trip to North Carolina; my mom's home state. We lived there for the 1997-1998 school year, and I love going back to visit. It was so fun to have Mike with me, and have him visit NC for the first time.
We had a wonderful trip! It was great to be with family, and the beach was beautiful. We rented an ocean front home and an ocean view home right across the street (since there were 24 of us). All of the adult children + spouses, except for Phil and Sarah, were in one house, and everyone else was in the other. Phil and Sarah had a cute little "honeymoon suite" detached apartment.
I loved being there with my family. It's not easy, or cheap, to fly 17 people across the country, and I'm sure it will be a few more years before we do anything like this again. It was also special to be there with Braden before he left on his mission to Poland.
Uncharacteristically, I took zero pictures. None. We still don't have a camera worth taking pictures with, and when you're on a trip with that many people, there are bound to be pictures taken. Luckily there were some great pictures taken, although I am sad that we didn't take more of the things we did together as our little family of 3.
Now I will probably sound like the worst person ever, but I definitely had my eyes open to the fact that there really isn't such a thing as "vacation" when you have young children. We had a wonderful time, but it was anything but relaxing. It was hard to travel with Curtis, hard to juggle nap time, hard to have time to chill, and definitely no opportunity to just relax on the beach. Being the only one with a child was hard. I tried my best not to feel left out of things, but it's just inevitable when no one else has kids to worry about, so they can do pretty much whatever they want, whenever they want. You just can't do that with kids. So, next time we go on a family vacation, someone else dang well better have some kids. That or we're bringing a paid nanny with us :).
But even though it was hard with a two-year-old, we still had a fantastic time, and I miss it! I love the East, especially NC, and I'd live there in a heartbeat if we could.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from the week.
Thank you to my mom, my brother Michael, and my sis-in-law Tregani for the photos!
LOTS MORE...
Curtis' first time in the ocean
Taking the boat to Shackleford Island
Loving the calm inlet
The couples
Grandparents' home in Raleigh
NC Museum of Natural Science
don't worry...we better have babies by next time we go back!
ReplyDeleteI love these pictures! Curtis is adorable! LoL, curtis up in the air looked pretty fun (almost alarming though too - he better get caught!) but it made me smile real big.
ReplyDeleteI empathize with being the only one there with kids. As much as everyone doesn't want demands on your time via children, to get in the way of adult fun, it happens. I imagine I'll soon be experiencing that too, as I'm the oldest among my siblings, and the only one married.