Ten Days {...at the beach}

Our beach trip went by way too fast. There was so much going on every single day. It was such a great time! We got there Friday, May 1st and Johnny and Maura (Tony's brother and his fiance) got there just minutes after we did. They spent the whole weekend with us and we really had a great time together! Friday night, I did Johnny and Maura's engagement pictures. Here's one of them and the rest of them (well, mostly the rest) are posted on my photography blog.

Saturday was too chilly to stay out on the beach, so instead, we just hung out with Johnny and Maura, then around five, Maura and I headed out to find a great spot and take her bridal portraits. I had so much fun doing them and it was quite stressful at the same time. Something happened to my BEST lens while we were out shooting and I almost had a breakdown. I switched to a different lens and everything was fine, and then when we returned home, it was working fine. It was extremely muggy in the location we chose and I'm thinking that had something to do with my lens malfunctioning? I don't know, but it really freaked me out a little. Oh, and Maura's bridals are beautiful, but I can't share them until after the wedding, because Johnny would surely sneak on for a peek. ;)

And Saturday night, Johnny cooked us an amazing meal of shrimp, salmon, chicken, and rice pilaf. It was really great. Here's Uncle Johnny and (soon to be) Aunt Maura with Noah and Emma...

Sunday was GORGEOUS!!! We spent the whole day on the beach! There was a group of kite boarders out, because it was super windy and I took about two hundred pictures of them doing their thing. I'm pretty sure they thought I worked for the paper or something, because one of them kept showing off right in front of me and smiling for my camera. It was so funny! :)

But what was hands down the funniest thing ever was this... When we first got onto the beach, the wind was blowing SO HARD that Emma's beach ball took off at top speed down the beach. It was hilarious!!! Tony chased it and chased it and chased it until we could no longer see him at all. MILES he ran down the beach chasing this $1 beach ball!!! hahahahahaha.... Okay, here's a picture of him returning from his impromptu run...

And here's my most precious little love muffin in his beach get-up...

Omgosh, I could eat him... how many times have I told you that???

And Tony and Emma spent the whole day building a sand castle... This girl loves the beach so much. She would stay out from sun up to sun down every day if we would let her. Such a sweetheart...

Building sand castles is such hard work...

Then, Monday we headed to Wilmington because #1... I really wanted to eat at The Waffle House and the closest one is 30 minutes away in Wilmington. Since we were driving all the day there, we thought... Hey! Maybe we'll head over to Fort Fisher and go to the Aquarium. So, that's what we did and somehow, we passed the road to the Aquarium and suddenly were upon a ferry. We had no idea where this ferry went, but we knew Emma would LOVE it! And as chance would have it, the ferry was leaving like 30 seconds from the time we pulled, up so we paid the $5 fee and onto the ferry we went.. the last car! :) That's when we found out this was the ferry to Southport. We didn't know what that was or where that was, but that was where we were going!

When we first got out of our car, this cool blackbird was on the back netting of the boat! He was so cool! See how he's looking at me?!? I quit taking his picture, because I thought he might attack me if I kept snapping..

Here's Noah and Daddy on the boat.... Let me tell you a funny story about this picture... the next night was cinco de mayo... Tony and I made strawberry margaritas... you'll read about that in a minute... and during the drinking of the margaritas, we started looking at these pictures from the day before... well, you know.. I had a little margarita in me, so I photoshopped Noah's hair onto Tony's head... pahahahahahahahaa!!! Okay... you had to be there, but seriously, we were close to peeing on ourselves after I did that... oh, and plus, I made his teeth like super duper glowing white and I made his skin look like a mask. It was the funniest crap EVER!!!! I wish I woulda saved it, but the funnier I made him look, the less and less funny he thought it was, so to save the marriage, I deleted the photo.. ;) However, you can picture it and you KNOW it's funny!

Tony took this of me and my babies. Hair's a little messy, my hand's over Emma's head like a claw and Noah's not looking, but other than that... it's perfect, dontcha think? Oh, and my boobs are hanging out. Sorry for that. ;)

Pretty, pretty princess on the ferry. She thought it was the coolest thing ever. That was the point. We knew she would think it was the coolest thing ever.


Just a pretty bird in the water by the boat.. probably hoping we would throw him some food... we didn't.

And Southport is the coolest little town EVER!!!! Pretty much no chain stores there, it's all little mom and pop stores. Loved it so much!! And THIS one was my VERY favorite!
Emma got to see her favorite old man in the world. Emma's one of those kids that sings Christmas Carols year round.. every day... loves Santa.. talks about him daily..
The Christmas House had a cool gazebo attached to it that had this cool train going around the top of it.. Emma loved it..

My fam-a-lam..

And here's Cinco De Mayo... do you know we bought that blender just so we could make strawberry margaritas? It's fabulous too, it's like a bar blender. Makes super smooth, perfect drinks. Oh, and it also does pancake batter quite well. I used it for that Thursday morning...

Tony said I make the BEST margaritas. I do. You should come over and try them sometime.

Emma's margarita was VERY virgin. Please refrain from calling dss. Thanks.

Noah wanted some of the action, but instead he got a bottle of milk and went to bed.
Here's WEdnesday morning. We were determined to find that Aquarium and boy did we!
I do not know how we missed the aquarium sign. It was so blatantly obvious. The only thing I can think is that God knew we were just supposed to take the ferry to Southport on Monday, so he temporarily made the sign invisible? It could totally happen. Right?

Okay, so this is a cool, pretty duck in a pond at the start of our aquarium visit.

Emma was so stinkin happy to be here. She loved every second of it.

This is at the part of the aquarium where you can touch the shell fish and anemones. I'm pretty sure this guy had a crush on Tony. Look how he's looking at him. Freaky. And Emma's holding a conch of some sort...

Noah very much wanted to be a part of this touching action. He was very happy when we let hiim out of the confines of his stroller and allowed him to splash in the water.

Emma the crab

Such a little daredevil he is!!! Emma was absolutely terrified of this alligator! Noah.. no way! He could not wait to get as close as possible. By the way, this guy's a statue in case you're questioning my parenting at the moment...

Then when she saw her brother's enthusiasm, she got a little closer, but still... not too close...
Thursday, my dad and brother came down and they stayed with us until Sunday. It was nice to have them. They fished most of the time so we didn't really see a whole lot of them, but still, they were there and we enjoyed them. Here's my dad and Noah having a conversation on the beach on Saturday.
I have a few more pictures I'm going to upload and share with you, but for the moment, this is it! :) Sorry it took me so long to get these up. The internet service at the beach is horribly sucky, so I just did not have the patience to wait thirty minutes for five pictures to upload down there. I'll share more with you later. :)


p.s. Yes, Jessica, I meant to say Holy Crow below. Everyone says Holy Cow and somewhere, sometime I heard Holy Crow and decided I liked it, so now it's mine. You can borrow it if you'd like. ;)

What a Day!

Yesterday... Wow... Yester-DAY!

Okay, let me begin at the beginning...

The day began by waking up way too late. This is always a nice stressful way to start the day. So, up we flew (thank goodness we have two children who love to sleep in) and got our day started. We slept til almost 10:30 and I had to leave at ONE for the whole day... leaving the daddy with the babies all day long. This was quite an adventure for him. He was smothering me with hugs and praises for what I do all day long when I returned at 9:15 last night! I was gone from Noah for 8 hours... phew.. that was a hard one.

Okay, so I went at one to Dunn for my sister to chop my hair before the photoshoot with Amy. This just slightly tore my nerves up. A brand new... super short hair-do right before the most exciting photo session ever. My sister rocks, though, so it worked out well.

After that, I had tons of time to kill before meeting Amy, so I went shopping. I got Emma and Noah some cute clothes for next fall on the 75% off rack at one of my favorite children's boutiques, Snapdragons, then I went over to Belk's, where I got Noah and myself some cute shoes on sale.

After this, it was time to head out to meet Amy in Warsaw, which is half-way between her and me.... forty-five minute drive for us both.

Before leaving Dunn, I noticed that my gas needle was getting a little low, but I was eating chicken wraps and talking to Amy on the phone, so I figured I'd just pull off on an exit along the way and fill up.

Thirty minutes later, I was still on the phone and had forgotten all about my low gas tank that was needing to be attended to. I was quickly brought back to reality by the bright red shining light and the needle that was sitting directly on top of the empty line.

I started to panic a little.

I was on a stretch of I-40 where the exits are nothing but farmlands. No gas stations in sight.

I relay this panic to Amy and she starts making plans to come rescue me on the side of the interstate. Then, thank goodness.... I saw an exit advertising a gas station, so I pulled off and it said the station was 3.2 miles to the left, so I took a left and kept talking to Amy.

Well, about FIFTEEN MILES later, I still had not come across this gas station and now my gas needle was below.... well below the empty line and not only that, I kept feeling like my car was hesitating.

So, I really started freaking out. If I ran out of gas now, Amy was not even gonna know where to find me. She's horrible with directions. So, I was close to tears on the phone with her. I rolled down my window and started trying to wave down the people passing me, hoping they would stop and tell me where the nearest town with gas was. No one did. So, I kept driving. Finally, I saw a huge Wal-Mart sign towering above the tree line.

A town. A blessed town.

So, I coasted into the Hess station on fumes and twenty gallons later, I was on my merry way.

Now... the real fun begins.

Amy and I do not know anything about this little town called Warsaw. We only know this is the point that I get on the interstated when going to see her and she gets off the interstate to come see me. So, we left my car in the parking lot at McDonald's and set off to find the perfect spot in her car.

After driving around for a long time on lots of roads we didn't know... hoping we'd be able to find our way back to our starting point, we rounded a bend and there it was. The perfect spot.

Up on a grassy hill was an old broke down house with opens fields and an equally broke down barn. We turned onto the dirt driveway. I noticed this sign at the end, nailed to a tree..

...but we ignored it because I read the sign as saying, "No Tresspassing at the POND.... not the HOUSE". Plus, we're two nice, sweet girls... who would care if we were taking pictures here?

So, we pulled behind the house, up on the hill, got out of the car, stripped down and started picking out our outifts, fixing our hair and make-up, and spraying layers of OFF on us. The bugs were horrible!

Next thing we know, this creepy old man pulls up in his little car and gets out, staring us down (We were dressed at this point, by the way). He has this huge smile on his face and he's chuckling with every mean word sputtered. He starts telling us how we're tresspassing and he has got the cops on the way.

We were all... "You're kidding right?"

HE was all.... "Absolutely not. You girls are tresspassing on private property and you're gonna learn your lesson. I guess you'll learn it when that door slams behind you, WON'T YOU? I'm gonna go ahead and go now so I can meet you in Kenansville (where the jail is) and sign the papers to have you prosecuted.... YADA, YADA, YADA."

This MEAN man let this go on for ten minutes or more. NO JOKE. And what was so flippin creepy was that he was smiling and laughing the whole time, but being TOTALLY serious. This man was a FREAK.

Amy's getting really mad. Her nostrils are flaring, she's pacing.

I was getting really scared. I was thinking of all the Forensic Files I've seen. I was picturing this man whipping out a gun and forcing us into the old house and... well, you can just use your own imaginations from here...

So, I started begging. "Please, just let us go. We'll never come back. We'll never do this again. WE are SO sorry! I've got two babies at home waiting on me. Please. Please. Don't do this. We are SO SORRY!!!"

I don't know how many times I said this. I was truly more terrified than I have ever been in my entire life.

Finally, after this devil-man had let this go on for what seemed like forever, he gave in and told us it was fine, that we seemed like nice girls, we could stay there and take pictures for as long as we wanted, but that we should really not do this again.

Fine by me!

Amy was PISSED. Sorry to use that word, but nothing else can describe it. Then, the man, on his way back to his car, turned to us and said, "Are you familiar with the gospel of Jesus Christ?"

Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!?!?!! You are going to preach to us about Jesus. The most kind, generous, patient.. and every other good word... Saint to ever walk this earth after you just tortured us and made us think you were either going to kill us or have us in prison for parking behind a old, broke down house for the last.... TOO MANY minutes!?!?!!?!

WHAT. ever.

Amy was even more pissed. Amy is the most religious person I've EVER known, so this just did not go over well with her. She kept giving me looks while this man was preaching his gospel to us. Her nostrils were flaring, she was not enjoying this impromptu Sunday Service by the devil himself.

So, when this man finally left us alone.. he had wasted about thirty minutes of our good afternoon/evening sunlight. We were not pleased.

We did stay there and do our pictures, but not without feeling totally creeped out the whole time. Amy's pictures are GORGEOUS!!! Go see the preview of them here. There will be many, many more to come.

And here are a few of me! She took them with my camera, so the first one is a little blurry (she was still getting used to the camera), but she's absolutely amazing, so I LOVE them!!! There will be many more of me to come too, but these were just a few of my favorites. If you'd like to see more of her photography, go here. She's incredible. I love her.

So, today's lessons learned:

1. Always fill up gas tank BEFORE getting on interstate, especially if the needle is anywhere below half a tank.

2. Never go on property that has any kind of NO TRESSPASSING sign posted, regardless of how you interpret it.

3. Always carry something to protect myself with when doing shoots on location, you never know when a crazy person might come to greet you out of nowhere.

Just a few more from the party

I forgot to post a few and a few were cut off in spots that just wasn't okay to me. So, here are some more pictures from the party!

My handsome birthday boy... I love the way the night sky looks here!

Another of the handsome birthday boy...And Heather was cut out of the picture in the blog below...

My mom and Uncle Curtis... my mom was cut out below..

And this is one of my favorites, so I couldn't have it cut off..

And today is going to be such an awesome day! I'm going to have my sister do my hair around one today and then I'm off to meet Amy for our big photoshoot together that we've been planning for more than a month now!

So, Tony is playing super dad today to our babies while I'm off playing with one of my bff's. Isn't that fabulous?

Oh, and the playset is basically finished, minus a few finishing touches, so once it is 100% complete, I'll post the complete photo documentary for your enjoyment.

Have a great day!

p.s. after I posted this, I went and fixed my template, so my pictures are no longer cut in half.. so now they're just on here twice.