Wow. It has been a whirlwind, and it's only June 11th!! Starting back on May 25 and 26, the Z's all started gathering on the East coast for Zack's Harvard Business school graduation (jump to Ana's blog for the cute photo re-cap. I forgot my camera at home on that trip!!).
We had to make it a quick trip. Each one of us, (with the exception of the Wiley's who were already a few days into their grand East coast summer trip) had to hurry back home to get our families packed up to meet up at Corolla Beach, NC (OBX). This was going to be our first year testing out an ubber ginormous beach front house, with a pool, on the Carolina coast. Could it live up to its West coast compatriots?!
Pretty sure it beat out the competition. Offering 9 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, a pool, hot tub, in-home theater with movie theater seats, we wonder if Southern California will ever see us again :) Did I mention the weather?! Well, maybe the weather wasn't totally dreamy, after all, 90 degrees and sunny does get a little bit toasty when humidity gets involved. But we managed to enjoy our week without too much trouble.
Naturally, I didn't take enough pictures. Naturally many relatives have sent me pictures. I'll open them and download them and find them all someday. But I need to see progress here at this blog, so my collection will have to due for tonight. My sister-in-law Ie Li is doing a thorough recap over at her blog. She's patient enough to go day-by-day. She is great at journaling. I am great at broad strokes, yes?!
The beach, it was grande!
Complete with cousins:
Beach babies:
Super fun aunts and uncles along for a good time:
Aunties who were almost always available for castle building:
Huck who is always the life of the party (and super special because he learned my name on day one):
Of course, it wouldn't be Beach Week without grandma and grandpa:
The beach front adults:
Nightly dinners, nightly games as Uncle Steve was slowly falling asleep on the couch. Christine's nightly disappearances to re-join the YSAs who were less than a mile down the beach (ha!ha!). The excursion to the Wright Brother's Monument and flight museum where I summoned my teaching skills and led a mini tour for the 6 and under crowd. It's all about making it relevant to your audience! Our first official BWBC!!! Can you believe I convinced my whole family to read the same book, and actually sit down together on Wednesday night as we had an official book club meeting. Honestly you probably have to be there to believe it, but it was so great. So, so great. Christine's cookies were the icing on the book club cake. Thanks for baking them CZ! Jet skiing! Crabs!! The list could go on and on.
It's impossible to write enough words, or take enough pictures to capture just how much this week means to me, my kids, and I hope the whole rest of our family. It is a yearly highlight. We thank Mom and Dad (grandma and grandpa Z), from the bottom of our hearts who make it all possible and bring us all together, year after year, after I hope a million more years! Long live Beach Week.
Until next year....
7 comments:
so, so fun! those are some cute swimsuits i see! i love the obx with all my heart. we've gone there as a fam every year since i was 6. i hope we keep it up once everyone else gets married. what fun activities you all did.
i forgot my original comments...the weather usually isn't that hot. the year jillian was two months old was sweltering and one other year that i can remember but don't let that deter you in the future. we always set up a huge sunshade on the beach to chill under.
Sounds like so much fun!
What was the book you got your whole family to read!? Such a fun family you are :)
Kat, we read a book called "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". It was really outstanding. But maybe it's an especially fun book to discuss. Like if I had just read it by myself, maybe it wouldn't have been as good. But if you need to make a book club selection for your local book club, I highly recommend it. There is a lot to think about and discuss within that book. About half of us listened to it as an audio file, thanks to audible.com. For me, that probably enhanced it as well. I think if I had read it, I might have gotten bogged down with the details in certain parts. But when you're listening, you can just take those details in stride. Good stuff!! What are you reading right now?! You're always reading something new.
That was me who deleted a comment. I posted as Anna.
Your family vacation sounds like a dream. How did it compare to your west coast beach trips?
Happy Summer!
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