Shrimp and Grits

There we were.  Thursday was the last day we went to the beach as a family.  (We gave Bridget her choice of what to do on the last day and she chose to spend eight hours at the pool.)  By then we knew how to have fun.  For Emil that meant riding a boogie board.

Uncle Aron likes to help kids do brave stuff.  Brian was right there to get Emil out of the water when he slid off the boogie board, though. :)  Colin took a calmer route (as usual) and just let us follow him to the water's edge and back.

Bridget is one of the brave ones - she'll try anything and find a way to have the most fun no matter what we're doing.

She took a few breaks to help Emil dig to China on the beach.

Bridget's hair is dry here, so this was before she started doing the boogie board.  Has anyone else noticed that I have a serious addiction to buying her cute swimsuits?  They're always on sale, I promise!  Like my Grandpa Furniss used to say, it's like dressing up a real live doll.  (And congratulations to Makenzie's little girl, Claire, since she gets all these suits next year!)

Cute little Claire in one of Chloe's old suits.

Bridget also went out with Uncle Aron, Vivien, and Lilja on the kayak.  (Kayak would be a good Scrabble word.  That game is messing with my mind.)

I really like this one of Ian, Vivien, and Lilja.  I don't even know what they're doing, but they're just cute.

Ben and Henry were at the beach that morning, too.  Henry with bells on, as you can see. :)

I keep noticing pictures that I forgot to include.  I know this one wasn't from Thursday, but it is one of my favorites.  Otter Pop wrappers are my nemesis.  The only reason we have Otter Pops at our house is because Daddy bought them.  Someone who isn't a fun-hater brought Otter Pops to the beach.  Because kids LOVE them.  Ben had a couple of Otter Pops and suddenly he was crawling with little boys.  They were like puppies!

Thursday evening was date night for the kids (my parents' kids).  We left Grandma and Grandpa with twenty-four children and took off for a great seafood restaurant in Surf City.  (They did have some super-duper helpers with the older kids who were there.  Don't cry them a river too soon. :))

Rabbit ears?  Come on!  (That's Brian, Aaron, and Ben - and Melissa in the background)  We waited to be seated for about an hour and a half.  Plenty of time to figure out the self-timer on my camera.

Jeff and Melissa will make out anywhere.

Here we go - Aron, Allyn, Melissa, Jeff, Ben, Rob, Claire, Brian, Jen, Makenzie, David, Nicole, Matt, Katy, Aaron.  During our hour and a half wait, someone came out to alert us that they were out of shrimp and grits.  It was Katy's dream to order shrimp and grits, see.  I wish I could write Matt's accent when he asked, "How do you run out of grits?!  It's a dry good."  They finally put us at a table for 15 and we may as well been at a table for four with Melissa and Jeff because they're the only ones we could hear well enough to talk to.  (Good thing they're so fun, even with all the PDA.)  Mom texted me that she was feeding our kids candy.  Then a few minutes later she asked me where we kept our diapers.  Ha!  (I had a delicious crab cake, by the way.  I'm ruined for any other crab cakes I will ever eat.  Unless it's at that restaurant again.)

Friday was kind of a sad day because it was the last day.  First thing in the morning I made everyone in my family get dressed up so that Melissa could take our picture on the beach.  I didn't tell Melissa my plan.  She wasn't ready for the day and she hadn't eaten and she still grabbed her camera and indulged me.  We brought our camera too, so those are the shots I'm posting.

Bridget used up her last day swimming in the pool.  I got to go to lunch with the ladies and get us a few souvenirs (I never spell that word right on the first try!).  We went to a cute place on Topsail Island and they had shrimp and grits!  I ordered them to be cool like Katy and they really are amazing.  We all shared some hushpuppies as an appetizer.  I still don't get those.  Am I eating them wrong?

 

I didn't get to spend much time with my siblings individually, but I kind of knew that is how it would be.  This vacation was more about introducing our kids to their cousins and aunts and uncles and giving them (and us) some great memories to look back on.

You can see Katy in the window ;).  Lunch was so nice.  Everything was so nice!  Thanks, Mom. :)  I think I stopped taking pictures at this point.  We came back from lunch and Brian and I started packing and arranging things for our 3:00am get away.  Makenzie, David, and Aaron were in charge of dinner Friday night and Bridget hasn't stopped talking about how good it was.  (Recipe, Kenz?)  Rob put together a family Jeopardy! game, which I missed most of trying to pack and keep Colin in his pack-n-play.  Ben put together a slide show of the pictures Melissa, Allyn and I had taken over the week (we had the right cables to do those particular cameras).  Then it was done.  Is it okay that I'm already thinking about how and when we can do this again?  I miss everybody too much not to think about it.