Slippery when wet

Hi there! Remember me? Yeah… didn’t think so.  I had a couple of weeks where I felt as if I was grasping for blog material, and by the time Memorial Day weekend rolled around, I was all too ready to walk away from my laptop for a few days. So, I did. I disconnected. Unplugged. The timing was good for a hiatus, because my lovely, generous aunt and uncle invited us to crash their party decimate their house invade their privacy spend a few days with them at the beach house they’d rented in Corolla, NC.

According to the Chinese placemat Calendar, this is the Year of Austerity, and as such we had already decided to forego our usual week of debauchery fun in the sun, planning instead to sponge off of relatives pursue more budget-friendly, cost-conscious options. But when my aunt invited us to experience a taste of our favorite beach, we couldn’t refuse.  We loaded up the Suburban, begged asked the neighbors to please keep the dog (and cat) alive, yanked the kids out of school for an extra day, and headed south. By lunchtime Friday, my kids were in the pool and a measurable distance had been restored between my stressy shoulders and my earlobes. Aaaaaaaah.

Saturday morning, it was the nature hour at the pond next to our house. The Boss went looking for frogs

Marlin Perkins Junior

…while Peezer blew bubbles on the porch.

I'm forever blowing bubbles...

Later, we found our way to the beach. We were all

Bubta

…and all…

Curt chillin'

…and all…

Peezer flies a kite

Saturday night, my aunt and uncle agreed to keep the boys safe and happy so we could go out for some grown-up fun with my cousin and her boyfriend.   Before we left, we did some of this…

Curt versus Luke.

Then we went out and were all…

Luke and Sandy

While we were out, my aunt and uncle took the boys crabbing on a pier in Kitty Hawk.  Even Bubta, who thought he was too cool to spend the night doing stuff with his great-aunt, decided crabbing was the coolest thing EVER. So cool, in fact, that Sunday morning, all three boys announced that they wanted to go crabbing AGAIN before we went to the beach!

In a time where it’s often difficult to encourage the kids to step away from the screens, we jumped at the chance to experience nature with our children. We slathered on sunscreen, loaded the back of the ‘Burb with nets and strings and a bucket of bait and a cooler, packed eight of us into the seats, and set off on the 30 minute drive back to Kitty Hawk.

By the time we got there, it had started to rain. But we were undeterred! This is vacation! It’s probably just a passing shower!

Except that it wasn’t. And then we were all…

Crabbing in Kitty Hawk

…and all… 

Curt dons his Shell of Tolerance

Sandy decided to jump into the water to retrieve a string that Luke had thrown into the water.

Sandy swims in the swamp

What? It seemed like a good idea at the time. It didn’t much matter, because we were all thoroughly and completely soaked through. Well, one of us wasn’t. One of us saw what was happening and got smart:

You kids go right ahead and get soaked through. I'll be here in the car, where it's dry.

We finally conceded defeat. The rain won. We loaded our soaking wet selves back into the ‘burb and headed back up to Corolla, where IT WAS NOT RAINING. I kid you not.

Mother Nature, you capricious bitch!

After drying off and warming up, Sandy gave crab pickin’ lessons to the Peezer.

It's fun to eat what you catch.

And then there was more of the same – swimmin’, eatin’, relaxin’ – you know, all those really compellin’ things you do on vacation. 

You might be wondering, Hey, Soup? Are you in any of the photos?  Good question! The answer is, not in this bunch. You’ll mostly find me sneaking off to refill my wine glass taking a nap behind the camera.

Solitude

On the way home, we dealt with lots of this:

Scenic Interstate 64 in Virginia

…and Curt proved once again why dads are way cooler than moms.

Why dads are cooler than moms: Convenience store cotton candy. In the car.

On second thought, it’s probably better that I stay behind the camera and capture these Precious Moments for posterity.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a sugary, sticky car seat to wipe down.