Laboring at the BEACH

It's a hard life, but somebody's got to do it...ha! For Labor Day weekend we headed to Oak Island with Derek's family. His parents and brother's family went with us. Unfortunately his sister, Tabitha, and her family weren't able to make it at the last minute because they had all been sick. We had such a good time! I can't tell you how awesome it was to get some good quality time in with David, Pamela, Hudson and Katy. We've seen them a few times since they came back from Thailand, but we were finally able to really reconnect. We ended up only getting one day out on the beach. The weather was gorgeous on Saturday, so we headed out to the end of the island where the water looks more like a lake. There aren't waves or bad undercurrents, which is great with Joshua. He was able to have a little more freedom to run around and go where he wanted..most of the time. Boy oh boy is that kid independent!

The Babies, Katy and Joshua

Sweet Katy at the Atlantic Ocean for the first time!

The boys and their children

Saturday night we went out for a yummy seafood dinner. We didn't end up eating until about 8:00, which is WAY LATER than Joshua normally eats dinner...ha! (It's actually later than he normally goes to bed!) But he did fine and tied himself over devouring the hushpuppies. He certainly likes some fried bread! After putting the children to bed we played some Uno! None of us had played Uno in so long that we had to refresh our memories about the rules. Did I really just admit that? We're pitiful, I know. It was a lot of fun, though!

On Sunday it rained most of the day. Derek, David, Pamela and I got Sunday morning and decided to try out a church we had heard of there while Grandma and GaGa babysat the little ones. The praise team leader from Campus Crusade in college, Dave Holt, is the worship leader at Generations Church. He had mentioned this to Derek earlier in the summer knowing that we go to Oak Island on vacation. We enjoyed the service and may go back the next time we go to the beach. After church and naps we went to Southport. We were planning to take the ferry to Fort Fisher to go to the aquarium. I think everyone else in the area had the same idea because the wait for the ferry was FOREVER long. So we just parked by the water in Southport and did a little exploring and ate some yummy ice cream.

Joshua really enjoyed being silly with Hudson!

Pamela with our babies (somehow I managed to not be in ANY pictures)

On Monday the boys fished for what seemed like a lifetime while we girls hung out inside with the babies (can we still call them babies?). We took our time cleaning the house and packing up and left around 4:00 that afternoon. We stopped to eat a very nutritious dinner at McDonald's with David and his crew. Then we left on our way to get stuck in traffic on I-40 going home.

We are still bummed that Tabitha, Ben, Taylor and Riley couldn't make it. We'll have to try again sometime to get all five cousins together. That's never happened before, and we are anxious to see them all together!

Don't feel sorry for the fact that we had to spend our Labor Day weekend laboring at the beach. It's hard work being a beach bum, but it's also oh so fun!

How did you spend your long weekend?