Vacation summary

So we're back from vacation... a much needed vacation. It was soooooo wonderful to see family that we have not seen in some time. It was my father in law... Joe's 75th birthday... so we first went to the beach in North Carolina to celebrate with him and other family... we had a fantastic time! As you can see the Carolina beaches are beautiful!!! I got up early one morning with my sister in law and took our cameras out to photograph the scenery at sunrise. The house we stayed in was right across the street from the ocean... gosh I love the sound of crashing waves..so relaxing. This was the kids first time really enjoying the ocean. Lucy was hilarious...she laughed at the first sight of waves and from then on, I couldn't do enough to keep her out of the water... we all had a blast. Max, Uncle Nate and Andy spent time playing in the water and flying kites. Katy thought that walking the beach meant that she was in her own personal parade where everyone was there just for her. "Hi GUYS!!!!"..."HOWYA DOIN EVERYONE??" She was so funny and everyone there ate her to pieces.

The second half of our vacation was further south to South Carolina to see Mama Rose "gamma rose" and her sister Patty "gamma patty". They have a property that backs up to a small lake...lots of frogs...and there are supposed to be a few alligators in there also...yikes! They set up a theme week for the kids. Alligators and swamp theme... sooo cute. First we went on a boat ride through a local black water swamp. Now you wouldn't imagine that a swamp could be beautiful until you actually spent sometime rowing through one of these. The water was so black that the reflections showed like glass. The trees were draped in Spanish moss and the Lilli pads were blooming with these beautiful fragrant flowers. We saw turtles and alligators on our boat ride. Then we had a themed lunch... with alligator tales (green beans) alligator tongues (hot dogs) and alligator poops (cup cakes) ... oh and they decorated the juice boxes with pictures of alligators and called it swamp juice. The next day we took the kids the the local aquarium .. while were gone they set up a whole alligator party... equipped with balloons, cake and fun original swamp games.

Anyway, since we've been back a whole 24 hours now... we've began to tackle the garage project. Well I should say Andy is tackling it... I'm not brave enough. We'll see how far we get this week. Now to check up on everyone else... HUGS... good to be back.