Overdue Vacation Recap

I think my brain has been on vacation all summer. I just can't seem to sit down and spend any time at the computer now that I don't have to do it for a living, but I do miss my blog, so I need to be a little more intentional I guess, since this post is a month overdue!

Last summer, our family visited the Carolina Coast to guest preach at a friend's church out there. Little did we know that we would completely fall in love with the sleepy beach town and have such a wonderful (too short!) few days there. When we were planning our vacation this year, I researched a number of option all over the country, but our hearts just kept taking us back to the Wilmington area. We remembered a stretch of beach where there were perfect, happy, colorful beach houses and my very diligent husband searched until he found one.

Knowing that we had much more space this time of year, we invited two other families to join us and spent 8 glorious days at our Kure beach house. Unfortunately I left my SD card at home, so the only "good camera" we had was my sister's (which I used a lot), but I figured I could do an all iPhone photo recap since I have many from that, too. So brace yourself for picture overload... here is our vacation in pictures:

Fun at the "Big Yellow House":

Morning coffee never tasted so good

Movie night with the cousins

Best Buddies

Family nap time happened daily... and I loved having this one join me in my bed!

Front Porch Sittin'

Nothing says summer vacation like watermelon in your underwear!

Sand and Surf:

This guy couldn't get enough of the beach!

After months at the gym, this mama braved a bikini again...
I want to always look good for that stud muffin next to me! 

TWINSIES!

This is the only way to keep Jake in one spot for an extended period of time.
Silly boy loved to be buried in the sand!

Most of our days looked like this, but I love gloomy beach days!

And it definitely didn't stop us from enjoying the ocean!

Lilly enjoys the same beach activities as her mama... that's my girl!

Day Tripping - Aquarium, Southport Ferry, and Jungle Island:

He's most definitely the biggest kid in our family!

Jake was a little more timid at the aquarium this year... he stayed close to his protector

Can you spot the native here? This guy was in the wild... not behind glass. Yikes!

I couldn't get enough of my nephew Sam on this trip! Isn't he adorable??

Daddy shows Lilly how to be "king of the world" on the ferry ride!

Jake loved "real life" Mario-Karting

They may look sweet and innocent, but Sam and Gretchen are fierce when it comes to competition!

We NEED one of these in our city. A warehouse full of playland equipment? Yes please!

Lilly was (somehow) our big winner at the arcade

The Boardwalk:

By far Jake's favorite ride... Josh and the "carni" were good friends by the night's end

Lil was brave enough to get on the carousel.
She was not brave enough to actually ride on a horse!

Jake LOVED having cousin Adam there to ride the rides with!

Our big boys went all by themselves... where did our babies go?

Here they are! Sisters and our (also growing too fast) babies!

Lilly's favorite ride of the night was on mama's back. I'll be sad when she's too big for this.

The Food:

These guys cooked most of our meals all week. I'll do dishes any day to not have to cook!

And this was just course one!

We found the perfect ocean-front patio for lunch on Southport Island

The kids did great despite the heat and it being nap time

If you're ever at Carolina Beach, go to Michealangelo's and order the Godfather.
BIGGEST. PIZZA. EVER. And so good that I may or may not have had more than one slice! 

This guy even got into the action!

The Night Life:

Believe it or not, we did get out for an adult-only evening!
And believe it or not, the "night life" in this sleepy beach town is limited!

We were very sad that the only ocean-front locale closed due to a few sprinkles

We got over it fairly quickly though

And just settled for dinner and dessert instead

I cannot tell you how sad we were to leave, but it's always good to get back home. It's been over a month and Jake still asks to go to the "big, yellow house" and I always tell him that I wish we could, too! My most favorite part, however, was having this guy there with me, completely disconnected from his phone, email, and even social media. As long as he's by my side, we can vacation anywhere!

If you want even more (and probably better quality) pictures, you can check out my sister's post, here. Hopefully I'll take the time to grab some of my favorite photos from her camera and post those soon, too! I'm seriously already counting down the days until next year!

Red Hot Mountain Getaway!

Hello, friends! I hope that you had a wonderful weekend! I am smack-dab in the middle of back-to-back wedding weekends, so I apologize if I'm a little off the grid these days. This past weekend I stood next to one of my closest friends, Sara, as she married a wonderful man, and on Friday I have the priveledge of standing beside my long-time best friend Elizabeth as she does the same. For some they might see these bridesmaid duties as obligations, but I have truly loved trying to make this time special for them both and hope that their wedding days were and are just perfect. I'm hopefully going to post about Sara's big day this week, so stay tuned!

 

Of course, along with wedding-day duties and showers, however, there is also the fun of planning a bachelorette party! For Elizabeth (whose shower you can see here), the bridesmaids are kind of scattered and we knew that this would mean a weekend getaway was in order. She initially wanted to go to the beach, but seeing that it would cost a lot of money during spring break season and it's very far for some of us to travel, we decided to meet in the middle and got a cabin in the Smoky Mountains. Besides, all she really wanted was a low-key girls' weekend where we really wouldn't do much other than relax and spend time together, so we figured we could do that anywhere!

 

If you have never rented a cabin in the mountains, I highly recommend it! Most are equipped with game rooms, plenty of bedrooms, back porches with gorgeous mountain views that you can look over from a rocking chair or porch swing, and outdoor hot tubs for relaxation... it's my kind of place. We all arrived on Friday night, had a delicious spaghetti dinner, stayed up until one o'clock in the morning sharing stories and catching up, and then "slept in" on Saturday and enjoyed a big breakfast. I put that in quotation marks because for those of us with kids, this meant that we just stayed in bed until about eight... my how things have changed! We spent the entire day in our lounge clothes, spent some time in the hot tub, took naps, and just enjoyed a nice change of pace. The one thing we wanted to make sure of, however, was that we did some sort of "party" for our bride-to-be, no matter how laid back it was. We just wanted it to be special.

 

A few weeks before the trip a couple of the other bridesmaids and I started thinking of themes and somehow got stuck on those red-hot candies... perhaps because this was right around Valentine's Day. We decided to take that idea and run with it and called it her "Red Hot Mountain Getaway," since we were celebrating one red hot bride! I called up my uber-talented sister, told her the theme, and she designed what just might be my most favorite invitation she has done to date (and she's done a lot of great ones!). Just see for yourself:

We asked everyone to wear red for our night out and our bride wore white. Actually, I wish I had a picture of the group because we could not have coordinated our outfits better... all the girls ended up in an equal mixture of red, white, and black as if it had been planned! Unfortunatley, all of the group photos are on someone else's phone. I did make sure to get this one, however, since we were the three moms on the trip, just to show that even post kiddos, we've still got it! Haha!

And since I don't have any of the photos from our night out, which was... er... interesting to say the least considering that Gatlinburg doesn't really have a night life, I just wanted to post the decor since it was fun! So here's a glimpse inside our Red Hot Party:

It was a fun and really easy theme for a "last fling before the ring" and one that I hadn't really seen before. We decorated with red roses, red hots (as well as other red candies), candles, pom poms, crepe paper, boas, and pearls and served red wine and red velvet cupcakes- heaven!  And the awesome table cloth? That's actually a curtain that hangs in our study... you can find it here. It makes me strongly consider using curtains as tablecloths more often as there are so many more cool options!

 

And what's a trip to Gatlinburg without this classic shot? If you've been there you know what I mean:

 

Sunday morning came quite early and I had to jet early to get to my speaking engagement, but it was wonderful to have a weekend away with these ladies, and one without kids! I love my children dearly, but a couple of days away every now and again can make a huge difference... sometimes we just need some me-time. I'm thankful for a husband who understands that, too.

 

Just four more days 'til my best friend is married off. I CANNOT wait!

Old, New, Borrowed... and Blue!

I think I've mentioned before, but in April I am going to be in back-to-back weddings. Not only that, but I am the matron of honor in both, so I have double-duty when it comes to making the time leading up to the weddings special for each bride. On the upside, there are a few small details that I have been able to duplicate, such as fun shower games and printables, but because of this I've had to put off the first of my recaps until both showers had been celebrated. So, even though this was back in January, here's a quick look at the fun we had at my best friend's bridal shower!

If you've ever met Elizabeth, you'll somehow learn very early on that her middle name is Blue. It's a family name and she loves it, and I do, too! Many people call her that, and so it seemed appropriate that we use the very appropriate theme of something old, something new, something borrowed, and of course... something Blue!  The I'm not posting a super-great image of the invitations, mainly because I swiped an image from the Internet and used it for my own design, but you could order very simlilar ones here:

We of course had hints of blue everywhere, but also used lace doilies and decorated with Mason jars to give it that vintage, old feel. I personally loved the way it all came together!

And ohhhhh these cupcakes were amazing! They were a chocolate-peanut butter creation from Annie's Eats. The frosting was to die for!  And how fun is the wine bottle in the high heel? The idea was from one of the other bridesmaids and I do believe that heels and wine were made to go together!

 

As for the food, we kept it simple and purchased finger sandwiches and a vegetable tray from Kroger, served pita chips and hummus, and an easy (yet delicious!) salad made up of field greens and spinach, mandarin oranges, sliced strawberries, sliced almonds, and poppyseed dressing. Delish! And thanks to someone who is much better at mixing beverages than I am, we even had blue sangria! It's hard to tell in the picture though!

 

After everyone had something to eat and mingled a bit, we passed around a notebook for them to write some advice for the bride-to-be, which will be a fun little keepsake for her. And then we passed out bridal shower Madlibs to do with a friend during the gift opening! I always think it's a good idea to have something for the guests to do while the gifts are being opened. I think it makes the guest of honor feel a little less awkward, too, since it's all eyes on her at that moment!

 

 

 

For the Mad Libs, I once again swiped someone else's brilliant design (are you seeing a pattern here) and customized it to fit my needs. But to give credit where credit is due, you can check out the original here.  Once I tweaked it, mine looked like this:

 

 

These were a huge hit, but even funnier was listening to everyone try and remember what a noun, verb, and adjective are! Wow, it's been awhile since we've all been in grammar class!  And as you know, I like to share, so if you ever wanted to use this, just email me and I'll gladly change the groom's name (since I highly doubt she'll be marrying a Dara!) and send you a copy.

 

All in all, it was a great day! I can't wait to stand next to these gorgeous bridesmaids in just a few weeks as my favorite person gets hitched!

 

But even sooner than that, I REALLY can't wait to meet up with them for our Bachelorette Mountain Getaway this weekend! After a week and a half of taking care of sick kids, this girls' weekend could not come at a better time... this mama needs it!  Look out Smoky Mountains, here we come!