Abby's Birthday Trip with Dad

Brian took Abby on a trip to celebrate her 16th Birthday milestone together. They spent the day at Carowinds riding coasters until they almost threw up, and they had a blast together! It was definitely a trip full of memories for them!

Happy 14th Birthday Emily!

This girl turned 14 this year, and we could not be any more proud of the strong, beautiful and confident young woman she is becoming! She has the biggest heart, sweetest nature & strongest drive to do things well. I can't wait to see where she will end up someday, but for now, slow down girl!!! It's going too fast!

Her new chauffeur and best friend took her to Taco Bell for a birthday lunch!

Brian made her favorite dinner... Swedish pancakes!

She is a very gracious gift receiver!

Ben got her a cool Northern Lights projector for her room!

Abigail and Emily recreated a few photos from her birth video just to humor me!

We gave her super cool rollerblades that are designed to help her strengthen her ice skating skills. They are so neat, and she's as tall as Brian in them! 

We made a homemade cake together at her request, and although our decorating may not have been bakery worthy, it was fun to make!

Happy birthday to our sweet Emily!

Spring Break at Topsail Beach

We were so blessed to be able to spend our Spring Break from school at a house on the beach with our good friends, the dads, AND our pups this year! The weather turned out to be beautiful and warm, the water was quite chilly, and we had a blast making memories together!

How could you go wrong with this as your view for the week?!?!?!

Everyone's grown up quite a bit since last summer when we were there:

The dogs were nervous about why were packing up, but they were pretty excited when they got to climb in the car with us!

The dogs were so excited to be with us, and ended up LOVING the beach!

Luna loved running around to avoid the water, and Ozzy fully embraced the ocean AND the sand!

 

Out of all my kids, this guy definitely logged the most beach time this trip!

The sealife was in full force this week! We saw HUGE jellyfish washing up on the beach, and my favorite coquina clams were EVERYWHERE! I could watch them bury into the sand for hours at a time.

 

Most days, the younger ones enjoyed the sand, and the older ones were all about getting some sun and reading on the beach!

Emily may have not wanted to get too much sun, but she loved having time to read her book... and I can see why, since we both finished the SAME book while we were there!

The water was FREEZING since it was so early in the season, but Abby, Ben & Audrey made it in once just to say they did... I think they only did it because there was a hot tub to jump into afterwards! It was even better having the hot tub on the deck overlooking the ocean!

My favorite beach activity was definitely being able to hang out with friends and being able to read a WHOLE book this week! It's awesome having slightly older kids who like to do their own thing!

We enjoyed a lot of activities on the beach this time too! The weather was perfect for some kite flying, and everyone enjoyed playing volleyball, Can Jam, Bocce and more!

I loved starting each morning with my cup of coffee and my book out on the porch overlooking the beach. I wish I could start every day in this amazing way!

The hazy mornings were mysterious feeling, but it didn't stop us from enjoying that time on the beach too!

These beach and sand bums had an awesome time together, as always!

The dogs enjoyed the hazy mornings too, but it made it a little harder to find the toy sometimes!

Luna let Ozzy run after the toys in the scary water and waited at the edge ready to pounce on him and try to play with the toy he worked so hard for. That arrangement seemed to work well for them.

After the morning fog burned off, we got burned!

This man right here did a TERRIBLE job applying his sunscreen...

Sometimes the sun was bit intense (even in the beginning of April), and everyone needed some inside breaks... We had so much fun together working on the giant coloring poster I bought! It provided HOURS of entertainment for everyone!

Nightly Jeopardy became a fun time together too, but made us feel really old...

Our dogs are SO loved...

One of the funniest moments of the week was when Kari tried accelerating her hair drying process (which normally takes FOREVER) with the dog blow dryer... I'm not sure she was sold on the results...

Ben wasn't sure either...

Of course we had to do some online trend this year like we usually do, and the kids picked the tortilla slap trivia challenge!

Some people got a little nervous listening to the questions carefully...

The siblings did NOT go easy on each other!

Even the moms got in on the fun!

Luckily, we were all still friends at the end of it all...

We headed into downtown Surf City again one night for dinner, some shopping & ice cream...

Out of all the memories, some of my favorite were our evening walks on the beach with the kids.

As always, we had an amazing week together, and even though it's always hard to come back to reality, we will always have our memories from the beach!