Here we are on the cusp of a new adventure. My oldest starts kindergarten in the fall. We're experiencing our last summer vacation as a completely mobile family. All too soon there will be registration deadlines, summer reading, (gulp) driving school, and then they're both off to college.

Ok, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. We have 15 glorious years ahead of us before they both go to college. I can't wait for the interim years.  I love school and most everything that goes along with it. Science Fair projects, book reports, back to school nights, friends, field trips. It's gonna be a blast!

But this summer we decided to take advantage of our mobility and head to NC for an extended vacation. I think we were there for 15 days in various places. We visited each of my three sisters who live in the area. The trip was also combined with a family reunion. It was the first time I'd seen most of my mom's side of the family in over 15 years! I'd not met my cousins spouses or children, or really seen them since we all had pimples and braces. It was also my grandmother's 85 birthday celebration on the same weekend as the reunion. She's the last member alive of her generation and we had a wonderful time celebrating her life.

The flight from Utah to NC was fairly uneventful. Thankfully, my mom was able to get on the same flight as me and the kids (D stayed home to work and to visit his family in Seattle). She was a few rows back on the overbooked flight, but she was still a huge help. About a month before any trip I start scouring dollar stores and grocery bargain bins for fun, small, cheap activities for the kids to open during the flights. It makes the trip go much faster for everyone. We hardly used the portable DVD player at all. They mostly wanted to play with their new toys.

Perhaps this is why, when we left the last airplane in Raleigh/Durham I managed to leave the DVD player and iPod bag in the overhead compartment. D's iPod. Not good. I didn't realize it until we were getting our luggage in the car and I was counting bags. We were one shy. Luckily, one of the stewardesses found it and had it waiting at the gate. All the (extremely slow) lost-baggage agent had to do was print us a special pass to run back through security and get it. Thank heaven for small miracles.

We slept at a great house that one of my sisters had a dog-sitting gig at while the owner was out of town. The next morning we were off to Wilmington and the BEACH!! My mom and I decided that since we were traveling all this way, it would be sacrilege to miss the beach when we were 2 hours away from it. Being in a landlocked state is tough sometimes. The lakes here just don't compare to the majesty of the sea.

My sister, K, met us at the beach with her husband and three little kids. We spent 3 glorious days there and got appropriately sunburned. Well, I did, the rest of the crew was either already tanned or guarded from the sun. After a yummy dinner cooked by my gourmand sister, B, we packed all 5 kids in the car and started the 3 hour drive up to Roanoke, VA.

Yes, there's another one. She's in a carseat, too.

They had a pretty good time, although I can't remember if they fell asleep. My kids don't sleep well in the car unless they're completely exhausted.

Still awake when everyone else is asleep.

We stayed with my sister in Roanoke for three really fun, hot days. We hiked, park-ed, ate and let the kids run around like crazy and rediscover their cousins. They only get to see each other once or twice a year and I'm amazed at how easily they get along whenever we get together. Their cousins showed my kids a new joy. Fireflies! We don't have any of those in Utah, so it was quite a novelty. Pumpkin was running around trying to catch them, while The Princess was fascinated but didn't want anything to do with them. She's got a bit of a bug phobia. During the firefly-catching activity I was on the phone with D fixing K's family computer, so I don't have any pictures. We got it fixed and I managed to make the last part of the fun. Hooray!!

After our (too short!) visit we headed down to Albermarle, NC for the reunion and birthday party. We stayed in a cabin in the state park. There were real WOODS!! We haven't been in "real woods" in years. I think the kids were kind of confused by all the trees in one place. The morning after we got there, some deer were foraging and came within 10 feet of the cabin. One deer just stood there, within spittin' distance, and let the kids look at her. She was beautiful.

Pointing to the family of deer in the forest.

The morning in the forest. Look at all the trees!!

We spent the day with my immediate family (sisters and brother) and the cousins had a great time swimming in the pool at the state park. It was right by the cabin! Pumpkin had a bit of a scare when he went in a different part of the pool than the rest of us. He tried to walk toward us, not realizing that the middle part was more than 5 feet deep! He was just passing under the lifeguard station when we looked over and saw that his mouth and nose were completely underwater. All you could see were his eyes, and they were terrified. The 2 weeks of "swim lessons" that he's had did nothing to prepare him for this. We shouted to him to get over to the wall and tried our hardest to swim across the pool as fast as we could. Strangely enough, the lifeguard did nothing. He managed to get to the side and haul himself up, sputtering and crying. He and I spent some time on the towels, but the little trooper wanted to get back in the water. I suggested the 1 foot deep kiddie pool and he was ok with that.

Checkin out the bugs with cousins. Can you believe that little S in the light blue swimsuit and Princess in the pink are a year apart in age? They're the same size!

 The next day was the family reunion in a great big hall on the state park land. It was beautiful and fun! Some people I didn't recognize because of how much weight they'd lost or how much they'd changed. Some people were just the same. There was lots of delicious food, so many people to catch up with, and some spectacular presentations by my mom and oldest sister, B. Mom's was an in-depth family history presentation to teach us younger generation about our roots. She had pictures, lineages, stories, and tons of interesting facts. Did you know we used to own a castle in Wales? And that one of my female ancestors was a high-ranking sufferage-ist who was arrested protesting for women's votes? No Mormon Pioneers to speak of, but a rich heritage of amazing people.

We had originally planned to spend the week after the reunion in Roanoke with K's family, but she was called to go to Girl's Camp (sort of like Scout Camp for the teenage girls in the congregation). She was going to tell them no, but I really wanted her to be able to go. She connects with the girls on so many levels and she's a great leader. So, we moved our arrival tickets up a few days. Unfortunately, our departure tickets were through an airline that levels a hefty fee for changes, so we decided to just stick around the extra week in Raleigh/ Durham with my other sisters and brother.

Sunday, on the way home from the reunion, I mentioned that I'd love to go back to the beach. We all decided to see if there was some way to make that happen. Turns out, since both my sisters can connect to work remotely (it's actually encouraged) and my brother was off work that week, they all wanted to go, too! We scoured the internet and found a last minute deal from a woman who had her house booked for the weekend, but nobody for the week.

We were able to find a 4 bed, 2 bath house, across the street from beachfront, for $400 for 4 nights. What an incredible deal! We were paying $100 a night just for one hotel room the previous weekend. And here we were spending that much for 4 rooms.

My amazing sisters packed up two cars and we drove the 2 hours to the beach. It was truly a vacation. My oldest sister cooked, my brother T helped with the kids, and my younger sister S provided much entertainment and help where it was needed. We had Canasta tournaments and long walks on the beach. The kids had a fabulous time. Please to enjoy some pictures:

Jumping over the waves and collecting seashells

Happy girl. She'd giggle every time the water hit her toes.

My beautiful Princess (dress tied up to escape the waves. Didn't work)

A true vacation: I actually got to finish a book! 4 adults: 2 kids are odds I can live with.

One night we walked waaaay out onto a sandbar at the end of the island. The tide was coming in on our way back, and we barely made it to the parking lot in time. We had the kids on our shoulders and we were booking it through the rising water. This was taken right before we turned around. The sandbar was only about 5 feet across even when the tide was out.

Making pizza with Aunt B! She's an awesome cook and I felt like our meals of Laab, scallops/shrimp/crab, even the homemade pizzas were a work of art. We only ate out once during the week and it didn't even compare. Why go out when you have a chef in your living room? Thanks, B!!!!!

We had a wicked thunderstorm one afternoon. The streets flooded and the kids loved watching the cars plow through the flood. The water would shoot higher than the cars! See how close we were to the beach?? What a great house.

We had a fantastic, low-key, delicious time. The scenery was great, the food even better, the the company was the best of all. On the last day (Friday) my brother T went back to Durham and got his newest "friend" C. She's great with kids and I feel like I didn't see Pumpkin all day because he was hanging out with her and T.

Our trip home was also uneventful. I flew by myself with the kids, but I had set aside another round of "gifts" for them to open. Even with the fever that Princess picked up by licking the rail on the pier (YUCK!!) they behaved themselves pretty well. When we got to the airport, D had misread the time and hadn't left to come get us yet. In a sheer Act of God, our next door neighbor happened to be on the same flight as we were. When we went down to baggage, she offered to give us a ride home so we didn't have to wait around for another hour for D.

We all piled into the car and our neighbor and her husband drove us home. AWESOME!! It was quite a way to end our trip.