Back from the beach...

So we are back...from the beach...for the third time this summer! Yes, the Wises can't get enough of the Outer Banks and it never seems to get old. Even after being there for almost 2 weeks all Elle kept saying on the drive home was, "I want to go back to the beach house!"

We had a ball. For the first week it was just me and the girls along with Grandma and Grampa Wise (or Grampie and Grammie as Elle has decided they should be called), as well as Aunt Christina and "cousin" Maverick. Every morning Grampie would feed the girls breakfast while Christina and I would go for a morning run, then we would head for the beach and stay until about noon. Lunch, of course, was served poolside. The pool was AWESOME because it was heated and warm! No flinching necessary. It also turned Mary Claire's hair green, but that problem was nothing that a little haircut wouldn't solve.

Graciously God gave us beautiful weather, a week as good as any during the summer! Perfect beach weather! Bennett, of course, made friends on the beach Day 1, so all week Mary Claire played with her new friends Ben and Morgan, and it was almost like Grampie adopted two more grandkids (see pic)! They had trucks and Mary Claire thought that was the coolest thing ever. I love the picture I snapped of her telling Ben a story, and how he was intently listening...

The rest of the family (minus Bobbycakes) showed up at various times over the weekend that was crazy! It was nice playing Scattergories and eating Holly's delicious chocolate chip cookies and watching movies. AJ turned out to be the family motivator/bonder and got Neil and I hooked on horseshoes. Not to mention the pool edge badmitton game he invented, which was hysterical.

After most everyone left, Neil and April along with Patience, Charity, and Neilson stayed for the second week. A cold front pushing in from the North created not-so-great beach days and the roughest seas I've ever seen at the outer banks, so we spent the days at the pool, taking walks, walking up Jockey's Ridge (see pic of Elle dancing in the sunset) and visiting the Roanoke Island lost colony mock up. That was fun and my girls loved visiting the "pirate ship" which was not a pirate ship at all, of course.

Overall, it was a great trip. It was a long time to be away from "life" so I think it has literally taken me up until tonight to recover. For a week straight I took 2-3 hour daily naps with the girls which is so unlike me! Today was the first day I felt back to normal. I think it is an official sign that I am getting old...er...