wordless august: beach style

i was fixin' to (sorry -- that's my north carolina roots talking) going to title this post my normal "wordless wednesday".  but then i realized that it wasn't wednesday.  and i've been pretty much wordless all month.  so "wordless august" seems more appropriate ... have i mentioned that we're in the middle of a house renovation?

i'm finally getting around to uploading photos from our multiple trips to the beach this summer.  we spent a week with my extended family for our annual reunion, another five days with our dear friends the basses (who might be in this blog as much as we are this summer), and just returned from bald head island, where we enjoyed another five days with chris's parents.  not a bad way to spend your summer break, especially your alternative is a house with an inch of drywall dust on every surface.  (i've discussed the renovation before, right?)

i am always so thankful that we are just a hop, skip, and jump away from our beautiful coast -- and our children, as you'll see, agree.

after years of watching me hunt for beach glass, susanna began a collection of her own

much like an old man, most afternoons liam would return to the beach showered and dressed, with a book in his hand.  he pored over the "encyclopedia of sports" he received as an early birthday present.  we are SO hoping that kids' Jeopardy has a sports theme when he's a contestant

susanna's on her way to china with the help of her great-uncle ron and cousin reilly



more digging with reilly, her partner-in-crime for the week



enjoying lunch on the deck with web and a camera-shy marshall

what's a beach trip without a putt-putt outing?  and what made it even better was our new rule: NO SCORECARDS.  because playing with liam, World's Sorest Loser, can drive a woman batty

in all my years of going to topsail, i had never seen anything like this: a giant tidal pool, about 25 feet wide.  the sand bar (where liam and web are playing paddle ball) surfaced on our second day there and returned every morning.  at its most pronounced, the kids could stand on the sand bar and jump down into the water as if they were on the edge of a pool.  we probably spent three or four hours there every day, swimming and floating ... it was perfect

it's a hard life



a feast of tuna steaks and scallops -- and our seafood loving children devoured every bite

bald head is full of photo ops, from the golf cart riding to the lighthouse to the ferry ... and the only shot i took was one with popsicles.  (although, i must say, if any popsicle deserves such attention, it's lunapops' sea salt caramel flavor.  i thought i'd died and gone to heaven.)

out of order

i try to maintain some semblance of order at our house.  i might not be the world's best housecleaner (in fact, aside from vacuuming, i'm pretty much terrible at all of it) but i do manage to keep our home relatively tidy.  i cannot stand clutter -- the kitchen counter might be sticky with a few crumbs underneath the toaster oven, but i at least make sure there's not piles of crap sitting on top of it that belong elsewhere.

i have vowed to myself that once our renovation is complete, that it will turn a new page in my life's book and i will become a regular merry maid who mops the floors, scrubs the showers, and dusts the lampshades on a very regular basis.  this renovation is also going to turn me into an early riser who exercises at 6:00 a.m. and who does not procrastinate work assignments and who runs on time, if not early.  it is AMAZING what this renovation is going to accomplish in my life!  i'm calling it my Miraculous Life Makeover.  just you wait and see.

but this renovation -- the same one that's going to effect radical change for the better in me -- is, in the meantime, wreaking havoc on the one thing i actually do right.  because there is no order in our family life at the moment.  our dog has been at my doting in-laws' for the entire summer.  half of the kids' toys and books and clothes are in my parents' basement.  we've also got stuff stashed in their guest room, at the beach house, and in the back of the car.  in short, if there's something we need, there are about seven different places where it might be ... and it's always in the last place we look.  (funny how that works.)

so i've had no choice to to embrace disorder.  i've learned to turn a blind eye to things not in their proper place -- because, for this moment in time, usually it has no proper place.  i shrug it off, reminding myself that this phase is only temporary, and once we are finally back in our house, i can spend a full day restoring my beloved order (and sanity) into my life.

never before has this been so obvious as it was this afternoon.  we're at topsail, where we have spent the majority of july, and have somewhat of a routine to our days.  we spend three or four hours on the beach, and when we're finally starving and have exhausted our snack supply, we return to the house to clean up.  i always stand in the outside shower in my swimsuit and help the kids, and then send them upstairs to get dressed while i shower myself.  by the time i join them, they're always sitting at the kitchen table, dressed and eagerly awaiting lunch.  i've gotten to the point that i look forward to seeing the concoction of clothing they both will have selected without me.  liam's usually in some totally mismatched outfit (today's pairing was a yellow striped shirt with blue and red plaid shorts) and susanna, for the past four days straight, has been in her purple flowered dress. 

i haven't bothered either one of them about their choices, because, well, it's summer and i really don't give a flip if my son looks like he's colorblind or if my daughter's stuck on repeat.  but i did finally ask susanna why she was so smitten with her purple flowered dress.  was it the pockets?  is it super comfortable?  does it have extra twirling power?

"well, it's just that it's the first one i see," she explained, "since it's always on the floor near the door."

aaah, the whole disorder thing.  a crumpled dress on the floor -- sounds perfectly reasonable.  i would've probably realized this, had i ventured up to the second floor to look in their rooms.  when i finally did this tonight to gather up their dirty laundry, i couldn't find any of liam's underwear.  so i asked my second question of the evening regarding their attire.  "liam, where are all of your dirty boxers?"

"hmm," he thought aloud.  "i don't know if i have any underwear besides the ones i have on."  i immediately felt the need to clarify exactly what he was telling me, so i asked him if he's really been wearing the same pair during this whole long weekend.  "oh no, not whole long weekend!" he assured me.  whew.  "i mean, i don't wear underwear out on the beach, silly!"

the end of our renovation -- and my Miraculous Life Makeover -- could not come soon enough.  until then, you must forgive me as i'm sidestepping piles of clothes on the floor and searching frantically for lost library books.  and if i allow my son to go commando from time to time while the wash is being run, well, i hope you understand that the mann house is temporarily out. of. order.

wordless wednesday: mountain style

i discovered that my super duper iphone4 has a better lens on it than my 3-year old digital camera.  which was great news to learn, since it's with me at all times and i now can snap fairly impressive (at least for me, anyway) photos at a moment's notice without lamenting that my aforementioned canon is in the car with a dead battery. 

this came in handy while we spent six glorious days in the north carolina mountains with our dear friends the basses over the 4th of july weekend.  we hiked, biked, ran, built a campfire, roasted marshmallows and made s'mores, set off our very own fireworks that were purchased in our neighboring state south carolina (which apparently does not care as much about the safety of its residents as our restrictive tarheel state), went gem mining, cheered on the sidelines of two parades, went tubing down the river, sat on the back porch and witnessed the most glorious thunderstorms roll in, and did lots of other things that i'm probably forgetting but will remember as soon as i upload my pictures.  because i have my camera with me at all times, you see, because it's actually my phone.  a modern-day marvel, i tell ya.

armed with the map, our fearless leader susanna blazed the trail on our hike 





there were actually nine of us on our hike -- marshall found a worm friend who hitched a ride on his cowboy hat 

 we found a beautiful gazebo for a picnic lunch, and made sure to reserve our sandwich crusts for the ducks

we stationed ourselves at the very end of the parade route in blowing rock.  to pass the time while we waited, a rousing game of duck-duck-goose was in order

seems the mountain air was a bit too chilly for the slip-and-slide for susanna.  on a completely different note, please take this opportunity to marvel at the clarity of this picture (notice those water droplets!) and remind yourself that these were all taken by a phone

susanna and marshall were inseparable.  they'd walk out the front door and we'd find them hours later, pretending they were on a "journey" with pretend backpacks and a treasure map, or with long sticks for light sabers as they played star wars

we enjoyed our very own fireworks show every night, courtesy of bill and his pyrotechnic talents.  he was kind to allow liam to help him set one off

 this is liam holding a sparkler BEFORE he decided to bring it close to his face to see if he could "feel its warmth"

visiting our old friend petunia the pot-bellied pig

waiting for the second parade of the weekend -- the "liberty parade" in todd -- otherwise known as the liberal parade

see what i mean?

the kids enjoyed a cold drink following the parade.  of particular note is liam's chin wound ... remember how our academically-gifted child held a sparkler to his face?

 

a rare photo of the four adults, taken by liam

hanging out with a friendly man in boone, after a trip to the candy barrel at mast general store, of course

while we mined for gems, liam found this rock, convinced it was a diamond

sadly, it was not a diamond ... BUT when the kids learned about the rocks they'd mined, he learned that he found the only sapphire they'd seen that day!  i'm still figuring out what i want to do with it

enjoying our umpteenth packed picnic of the weekend on our way home, using an outside table at hardee's where we bought nothing (but used their nasty restroom)

i'm still kind of amazed we fit six people and all of our luggage into our SUV ... of course, we did have to wedge a big bag of trash in between marshall and susanna until we found a dumpster, but they didn't seem to mind

and a good time, as they say, was had by all.

wordless wednesday

we steered our car in the opposite direction from normal on I-40 this past weekend, and headed west to the mountains.  our good friends lainey and bill and their two sons, web and marshall, invited us to their cabin near blowing rock.  (if you've been a long-time reader, you know that the bass family have starred in many previous posts, like here and here.)

lainey and i have a theory that no matter what, and no matter where, if our families are together in a remote location, there will be rain.  and sure enough, about ten minutes into our adventure to tweetsie railroad on saturday, the rain started falling.  i shocked myself that i actually had enough foresight to have packed raincoats, so the drizzle didn't really bother us.  the temperature did, however.  when we left around 3:00 pm the car thermometer read 63 degrees -- a nice break from 100+ degree heat at home, to be sure, but not exactly a match for our t-shirts and shorts.  we scratched the peach daiquiri plan and headed home to a bottle of chianti instead.

but the second part of our weather-related theory is that our day of rain is always, thankfully, followed by a day of sunshine.  and sunday was gorgeous.  we took a three-hour long hike off of the blue ridge parkway, had a long lunch in boone, and ended our trip by tubing down the river near their house.  (tubing = sitting on your hiney in an inflatable raft as you slowly drift with the current.) 

on a weekend where we rode the ferris wheel, spun in the tilt-a-whirl, and lazily rotated in our rafts in the river, there's no doubt that good friends really do make the world go round.

i think Time Out would be far more effective if we had a jail like this one -- that actually locked 

all that room on the seat, and marshall has to sidle up to susanna? i'm thinking that they might not share a bed next time.

view from the top of the ferris wheel.  notice a tiny chris on the ground below, aiming the video camera up towards us.  chris loves many things.  heights are not a part of that list.

i cannot remember the last time i laughed so hard as when the four of us were on the tilt-a-whirl.  i had tears streaming down my cheeks as the kids were cackling with glee.  and it kept going, and going, and going ... 

three smiling boys, and one grumpy girl, before our hike 

but she perked up quickly

we have a bone to pick with the national park people, who claimed that the trail we took was .8 miles.  either we took the wrong trail, or that decimal was in the wrong place.

this is the strenuous, exhausting sport known as tubing.  actually, it's tubin'.  i guess you get so tired doing it that you don't even have enough energy to say the "g".

we flattered ourselves by saying that this could be a picture of us from college.  obviously we're ignoring the crow's feet.  and the carseats in the background.

wordless wednesday

we're down at the beach for most of july and having a ball.  chris comes in on the weekends, and during the week we've been to wilmington a few times for visits with friends, free matinees, and a trip to the children's museum.  but the kids' favorite time is simply out in the ocean, splashing around in the waves, entertained for hours.  if only we could be this carefree and unproductive all the time ...

l

 liam's favorite thing to do is boogie boarding, but he'll occasionally stop for long enough to jump the waves with susanna 

 

blue and yellow make green!  mixing paint colors at the children's museum

 

it's a tough life.  sometimes you just need to relax

 

we often say our nighttime prayers on the deck as we watch the sun go down over the water -- pure bliss

getting along swimmingly

every summer the kids take swim lessons. and every subsequent fall, winter, and spring, they apparently forget everything they'd learned. and then every may, on our first trip to the pool, i kick myself for not keeping up the swim lessons year-round, as i watch my tentative daughter refuse to put her face in the water, and my son flounder for a few seconds as he realizes that he is far more confident in his swimming ability than he has a right to be. 

so we spent every morning last week in private swim lessons with one of the lifeguards at our club. by the end of the last day, susanna had made some progress; she's still not a fan of putting her face in the water, but at least she's now jumping off the wall into our arms with a smile on her face.  but liam's progress was really remarkable.  he went from not being able to go from any point A to any point B without assistance, to being able to successfully navigate the deep end from one side to the other on his own. 

and navigate the deep end is all he wants to do these days.  off the diving board he goes ... surfaces ... doggie paddles like mad to the ladder ... and right back to the diving board again.  he's belly-flopped a time or two, but it doesn't seem to bother him in the least.

i'm contacting webster, because if he needs the perfect image to accompany the definition of "elation" in his dictionary, i can't imagine a better picture than the one above.  

and here are a few more:

liam's showboating style, aiming towards chris

swimming as fast as his non-efficient doggie paddle will take him, so he can do it all over again

and when the diving board line gets too long, there's always the slide

wordless wednesday

oh beach, how we've missed thee!  here are but a few photos from our first trip of the season. 

for the record, i'm not wild about the name my dad chose for his boat (which, in case you can't see it on the side, is "Die Broke")

liam's received a bit of golf instruction from his Pops, who taught him to position himself over the tee by lining up the ball with his bellybutton.  so for all 18 holes at the putt-putt course, liam would lift up his t-shirt just to make sure he had it right

obviously, susanna has received no instruction whatsoever

where did our four-year old daughter learn how to pose like this?