The summer vacay has bugun...

Ok, so I know it has been FOREVER since I have updated my blog and I am really sorry to those two people out there (outside of my immediate family) who read this on an occasional basis. Instead of updating you on everything that has happened in my life in the past three months I have decided just to let you know what is going on in my life at the moment. I know you can tell from my previous posts that I absolutely love my job, but I am about to let you know one of the best reasons to be a teacher in just two simple words...SUMMER VACAY!! Now I totally think that spending my day with a bunch of kiddos is absolutely wonderful, but I have to admit having two months off in the summer is definitely NOT too shabby. For the first couple of weeks of summer vaction my mom and I have been working on various projects around my house. This is something that she has been itching to do since I bought my house last August, but my priorities have been elsewhere for the past 10 months. However, for these past two week I have been completely motivated and focused to get a lot done. My mom and I have had a lot of fun pretending like we are on the HGTV show Devine Design (and I truely believe that my mom thinks she is Candance Oleson), however, we have yet to be able to completely redo a room/house in just a few short days. There are just a few minor details that we are lacking in order to be as successful as Candace...we don't have a big team to disperse the responsibilities and, unfortunately, we are not professionals! I will post pictures of the work in progress very soon.

Now for the next adventure of the summer...If you know me or you know my family at all, you know that our favorite place in the whole world is Seaside, Florida. My family started going to Seaside before I was even born and has continued to go pretty much every year since. It is so fun to think back to how the "group" has changed over the past 25 years. This quaint, little town is such a special place for us because of all the memories that we have made here. About 7 years ago my family started a new tradition. We totally love having all of the boyfriends and husbands around as we are laying on the beach, however, my mom wanted to be able to get away with just her girls...thus, the Seaside Girl's Trip was born. I have to admit, this year I was a tad bit worried that with everything that is going on with the oil, our WONDERFUL Seaside trip might not get to happen as planned. I quickly realized how selfish I was being when my mom talked to the guy we rent bikes from down here and he was telling her about how he has had this bike shop for 17 years, but he wasn't quite sure how he was going to be able to make it this year. Why was I so concerned about my two weeks of vacay being postponed when there are so many people's livelihoods that are being ruined and the only thing they are worried about is how they are going to put food the the table? After this conversation my mom decided that we would go no matter what. We didn't know if we would be laying on the beach of cleaning up oil off of it, but regardless, these precious people down here needed us to spend our money so that is exactly what we were going to do! On Sunday, nine girls and one boy (we made an exception this year since he is just 4 weeks old) headed to the coast for two weeks of laying on the beach, swimming in the pool, riding bikes, eating lots of food, nightly trips to Heavenly Shortcakes, and having TONS of fun!

Here we are on day 2 of traveling, all loaded down at the hotel in Madison, Mississippi ready to head to Seaside. We spent the night in Madison because after eight hours of driving the three kiddos were definitely ready to be out of the car...which means the adults were even more ready to be out of the car!

We finally reached our destination around 5:00 yesterday evening. After unloading the car we headed to one of our favorite restaurants right on the beach. While we were waiting for our food, Ava and I walked down to the Ocean to assess the situation. We were so excited that the sand was as WHITE and BEAUTIFUL as ever! We all went to bed pretty early last night because we were completely exhausted from the two days of traveling. I have yet to figure out how driving/riding in a car can make you 1) make you look like you have been hit by a truck and 2) make you feel like you have been hit by a truck. When you are staying in a house with three kiddos under the age of 5, EVERYONE gets to wake up super early. We were all pumped about spending the the entire day laying on the beach and swimming in the pool, however, our plans quickly changed when we woke up this morning to TONS of rain. We laid around the house for the majority of the morning trying to entertain ourselves with Justin Bieber dance parties. We all made a mad dash to get our swimsuits on as soon as we saw the slightest break in the clouds. We decided that a little rain wasn't going to keep this party from going to the beach. Most of yall reading this probably know that I am not the type of person that is able to just lay around all day...I always need something to do or work on. However, that rule totally goes out the window when I am at the beach. That is honestly the one place that I can lay around all day long. I don't think there is anything that I enjoy more than laying on the beach with a really good book! With that being said, the exact opposite took place this afternoon. There was no laying around, there was no reading taking place...our afternoon consisted of boogie boarding, sand castle building, and lots and lots of swimming!

This surfer girl was ready to catch some major waves!

After Ava got taken out by this wave, Devin thought she needed to show her daughter a thing or two when it came to boogie boarding!

She showed her a thing or two all right...next time you see Devin, make sure to ask her about her mad boogie boarding skills! I wouldn't be surprised if she minored in boogie boarding in college after seeing what she was capable of today! Let me tell ya...that is something to be proud of!

When we got back from the beach, there were a few things that needed to be picked up from the grocery store. Devin and I thought that it would be a good idea to ride our bikes to Publix. Reece had just woken up from a really long nap so we decided to bring her along with us. I'll be honest with you, there were many reasons why this whole situation seemed a little scary: Devin on a bike...scary, Devin pulling Reece in a wagon behind a bike...scary, Devin having NO IDEA how to get to Publix...scary!! But what the heck, you only live once! Obviously we made it to the store and back in one piece and Reece absolutely had the time of her life!

This is Devin and Reece before we took off on our journey. I'm pretty sure I was praying while I was taking this picture!

Well folks, that's all I have got for you tonight. It is getting pretty late and as the saying goes "early to bed, early to rise" I can guarantee that I will be rising pretty early tomorrow morning even though I'm not making it to bed very early. I'm sure some eventful (or lack there of) adventures will occur tomorrow that will give me some more topics to blog about! Until then...