A week at the beach (part one)

I'm splitting this into two parts because it was just that awesome. Oh, and there are about a million pictures. 

I grew up in North Carolina. And, many of my childhood vacations were trips to the beaches of North Carolina. My mom would rent a beach house, then us kids would spend a week splashing in the ocean and digging in the sand. I have lots of memories of spending time at the beach, including my one-and-only trip to the ER for stitches. (Darn you sharp-tailed sea creature, I still have a scar!) But, despite the emergency room visit, I still loved going to the beach.

Obviously, living in Kansas hasn't afforded us nearly as many opportunities to beach it up. Especially having kids. But, my mom had a big birthday this year and wanted to celebrate with a big family trip to the North Carolina shoreline.

So, July 14th, we packed everyone up and headed to the beach. My mom rented a house again, and 16 people were going to be staying in it. Many of those 16 people chose to drive to the house in Emerald Isle, NC, but we decided to take the easy way with two children and fly.

My dad also flew with us because he had decided to have neck surgery two days before we left, and didn't think it would be wise to drive. I'm not so sure flying was that smart, either, but he made it there and back and is still alive, so I guess it turned out ok. But, that explains the neck brace in all of these pictures. I promise, my dad's fashion sense is iffy at best, but not that completely crazy. :)

Molly, Charlotte and my dad after getting off our tiny plane in New Bern, NC.

We rented a car and drove from New Bern to Emerald Isle. The girls were dying to see the ocean. It was both of their first times to see or be at the beach. So, after unpacking, we immediately went down to check out the water.

Such a great view from the deck of our beach house.

Sea shells!

Our beach house is the one on the right. We were majorly intrigued by the monolith on the left. We finally did some cyber-stalking on it and discovered that it rented for a mere $11,000 a week. 

Some girls and their dad.

Whee! My feet in the ocean.

Having fun.

The girls then decided they needed to be in swimsuits.

Molly loved being in the water.

Charlotte decided the sand was more her speed.

Yeah, Mon, Jamaica!

A long time ago, we decided that for our 10-year anniversary, we would actually go on a trip. We hadn't been away together since before Charlotte was born. Plus, our last vacation was a trip to an all-inclusive resort for a friend's wedding. It would've been really awesome had I not been pregnant and puking the whole time. (It's a good thing Charlotte's cute!)

We were originally going to head to Hawaii, because even though Cory had been, I hadn't. But, once we started looking at prices, we decided to try somewhere else. Hawaii is expensive! We found a deal on Costco's Travel site (Did you even know they had a travel site? Because I didn't.) for an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica. Considering I was most looking forward to sleeping and hanging out under an umbrella on a beach, Jamaica was as good as Hawaii to me. Beach? Check. Umbrella? Check.

The deal we found was for six days and five nights. It sounds like enough time, but when you count two whole days of travel, it really was too short. Aunt Amber came up from Texas and stayed at our house to watch the girls. They had a great time and absolutely did not miss us.

There's not much to write about the trip. I slept a ton. Cory ate a ton. I read six books. Cory drank a lot of mudslides. It was pretty fabulous. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves:

We just arrived in Jamaica!

First thing I did? Put my feet in the ocean.

First thing Cory did? Find a pizza.