Bumgarner (Birthday!) Beach Week

With all the grandkids getting older and starting school, in a variety of school districts with varying school district schedules, we opted last year to move our family's beach week to August instead of spring break. So we had to wait several extra months this year to scratch our beach itch, but we finally made it! And celebrated Charlotte's birthday there, to boot!

(Girl's going to start thinking she gets a trip every year for her birthday.)

I made a laughably fundorable janky sunshine cake, per her beach birthday request, and it was... something. (She loved it.)

In better crafty news, I also made that shirt myself with a roll of iron on glitter paper and a blowing up a fun font and tracing it, oh yes I did, LIKE A BOSS.

Her one birthday request for the beach was to have an egg hunt. Normally we have always been there near Easter of course, and we often do a big family egg hunt outside on Easter afternoon after our beach arrival. Egg hunts aren't really part of our Easter celebration at home, so she totally associates eggs with the beach, not Easter itself. And. So. She wanted one for her birthday. At the beach. BECAUSE EGG HUNTS ARE A NORMAL BEACH ACTIVITY DUH.

After her birthday, the rest of the week was full of drinking and ice cream and watching the Olympics together, which was sort of fun since we hadn't done that together since we were kids.

We also took some of the kids to a tye dye event in the little pavilion by the town hall. Excellent activity.

We waited by a turtle nest for some turtle rescuers to shepherd some babies into the ocean (Holden Beach is a turtle sanctuary and we were there exactly the right week!) but it had already mostly hatched, so we only got to see leftover eggs, no babies.

John and Mark and the kids built a lot of sandcastles. Like, a lot. A LOT. Sometimes I think those two only pretend to be into it "for the kids" because they just legit like digging themselves.

Anneliese figured out how to ride waves in on the boogie board, and spent literal hours doing it. At one point during the week she asked me if there was an olympic medal for boogie boarding. "No reason, just curious."

We had some lovely evenings out on the beach, too. Our normal (little kid) routine had been to bring everyone in by 4 or 5 for dinner and then into bed afterwards. But this time of year, when it's hot in the day and everyone doesn't need to be in bed super early (because Olympics) (and getting older), it became easier to have some a/c time inside in the middle of the afternoon, and play to our hearts' content in the evening. Just so amazingly beautiful.

And fun uncles make things pretty fun too.

Thanks for a fun week as always, Dad and Cathy! It's so fun to see how the kids grow up all crowded around you at the beach every year. We are lucky to do this and lucky to have you.

It seems every Carolinian family has "their" beach town that they go to every year, a thing that is apparently unfamiliar outside of this part of the country. But it happens, it starts to feel like home, everyone has one, and this one is ours.

See you next year, Holden Beach.

Happy Birthday, Charlotte!

I am posting this in the wee hours of Charlotte's 5th birthday, from the beach, our annual trip with my dad. This is our second year on the road for her special day. Basically she's going to start expecting a trip every year for her birthday, and I will have very wide eyes (and say no) (but secretly want to say yes).

She was really excited to claim a top bunk when we got here today, something she quickly named as her birthday right (she didn't get a top bunk at GWL for Nathan's birthday, and has been talking about it ever since). But some hours after bedtime she got scared up high, appeared for several "bathroom breaks," one of which ended in tears and fears -- so we did a bed shuffle and now she is sound asleep beside me, my sweet baby girl who wants to be a big girl but clearly still isn't, in so many ways.

Oh, my heart.

So while I am busy having difficulty comprehending the passing of time, and also that my child is five, my youngest baby, and thinking about how much a youngest baby growing up just wreaks havok on the mom feels -- as I'm thinking about all that, I am also just now remembering I intended to make a cake tonight, and whoops! Got distracted by ice cream and the Olympics and totally forgot. It's nothing that I can't do in the morning, of course -- our "party" plans for the day are very vague, because, yknow, vacation -- but it just goes to show that while youngest kids can pull extra at your heartstrings, they also get a teensy bit forgotten. POOR THIRD CHILD, ETC.

But she is indeed five, and she will have cake, and the cake will be wearing sunglasses, I think? I hope? and she does squeeze my heart, this little Booler. She is growing up right before our eyes; most days it feels like the perfect balance of happy/sad.

Some of my favorites from the last year:


If you can't see the embeded video, click here to watch on YouTube.

(If you love memory lane like I do, here are her first, second, third, and fourth years too.)

Oh sweet little girl, I both ache for your diminishing babyness, and love the race into your big-kid-ness. I love you more than you can ever know. Keep dancing, every time you feel a dance in you. This year and always.

Happy birthday, dear Charlotte.

Beach Week 2015

Here, have some pictures from the beach. This will be our last spring Bumgarner beach week -- with school schedules all varying between the cousins, we are moving it to August next year. More reliable for warm weather, and a schedule that doesn't rely on spring break, which is different for all the cousins in different school systems. This house at Holden Beach has been really good to us over the years, and for our last April trip, the weather was spot-on perfect.

Reading on the beach means he is a child after my own heart.

We have reached a magical age where they play together and don't get sand on me,
and don't... need me. So I can close my eyes and the beach is relaxing again.
WE MADE IT.

Hey Nathan Y U look like a teenager?

Charlotte talked Brad and Marija's ears off, but what are rocking chairs for?

These two are still cousin besties.

Nathan would only allow himself to be buried in sand
if Uncle Sean suggested it. No one else. No one.

Mark was helping the kids see the dolphin he spotted.
But let's be honest, all I was thinking was *dat ass*

Just kidding, I love him more than life itself.
(Not kidding though, with the ass, I mean.)

I taught him the selfie art of LOOKING AT THE DOT.

This trip is seriously one of the best things we do every year. Thank you, Dad. For real. We love it and we love the time together and we love you.   <3 p="">

Alleluia! And Eggs!

We had our nephew Liam for Easter weekend this year, in preparation for taking him with us to Bumgarner beach week - which means we had FOUR kids up and ready before the earliest service, which is a new record for us!

And when I say us, I mean Mark, because... I did nothing. That's not true. I spent a lot of time blow drying my hair and brushing it one hundred times or whatever. Anyway. Mark did it, he gets the credit, he is a rock star, and they all looked adorable.

My kids, being kids of a choir mom, are among the first children at church every week. On Easter, that means getting to put the first flowers on the cross. Basically every year.

We usually have to go back after the later services and Sunday school hour to see it fully flowered, but I sort of like it empty like this, mostly wire, only a few flowers. It seems the most appropriate for the chilly wee hours before everybody gets all He Is Risen excited, yknow?

I also took Nathan and Anneliese to the Easter Vigil last night (a first!) and that was really great.

Nathan got to ring a bell as we all processed from the courtyard into the sanctuary.

(Liam and Charlotte stayed home with Marky, since they - the babies, not Mark - were on the verge of Easter breakdowns. It's a late service for three-year-olds.)

And then we got to the beach and did the traditional egg hunt, except without my sister to make it happen (SAD FACE WE MISSED HER), which means I did, which means Nathan did most of the hiding work, because I'm either really lazy or really smart.

But it was a hit anyway, and now it's time for the beach! Happy Easter! Alleluia!

Another (Another) Beach Day

One thing Another Nathan will totally miss in Minnef@ckingsota is living near a beach. So in the interest of making the most of his last months in North Carolina, Mark and I decided if that means loading him up to go to Wrightsville at 8am on his day off, after a long late flight the day before, then he will do it and he will like it. (He did.) (I mean look at us, what's not to like? Anyone would want to be in this van with all of us. We are fun.)

Besides being kind of annoyed by some of the people around us  (aside: I should write a blog post of simple rules for how to be a good beach neighbor) it was an easy happy day: Lunches on a beach blanket, dump trucks in the sand, drowsy reading in a beach chair, watching the kids play with Mark in the waves and feeling happy they're my family.

Just your standard perfect day at the beach.

Eleven Questions

Okay apparently we are being meme-y on the internet this week and I am not complaining because these things are fun to read, fun to write, and easy on mah brain. Elizabeth tagged me. So. Here goes.

1. What is your favorite type of cheese? I have no real feelings about cheese. Maybe... any cheese that is not smoked? And preferably melted. For to dip things like chips.

2. What are you excited about? Hmmm I... don't know, actually. Sad. I have spent the last few weeks so filled with nerves and dread and worry that I don't think I have been looking forward to anything. Let's remedy that now! *brisk clap* Okay, I think I am excited about summer, at least the kids being home from school part. (I miss them.) I am alllllmost excited about my new iPhone coming this week. (I have never owned an Apple product, and now I will. I don't even know who I am anymore.) And I might get to go on a road trip in August to the midwest which will be weird but also fun and I could totally get it up to feel excited about that. Oh! Oh! And we are taking a day trip to the beach on Monday! Okay I just hit legit excitement. Good talk.

3. How did you celebrate your last birthday? What awesome thing has your dad done this week? (I think I answered the birthday thing in the New Year survey, so I changed the question, don't mind if I do.) Y'all! My dad is retiring from teaching! Teaching, which was a late-ish-in-life career change for him (when I was a senior in high school), after many years (and several master's degrees) in corporate America, which was after several years in the military, and anyway it turns out he is pretty awesome teacher, and has been for almost twenty years now. And he is retiring and his kids and colleagues love and respect him, and we do too. We are super crazy proud of his work and (warning: cheesy ahead) the difference it makes. You should watch this sweet and funny video some of his students made for/about him. Love it.

4. What is on your bedside table? A lamp I used to love and now find incredibly ugly, an alarm clock blinking the wrong time, a booklight, a baby monitor whose mate was abandoned months ago in Charlotte's room, a bottle of gatorade, and all these books. (I am currently reading all of these, save one I haven't started yet. Yes really. I tend to read one novel at a time, and nonfiction type stuff a chapter at a time, rotating through each of them once a week or so. I don't know why. Now that I am trying to explain why I have all these books on my nightstand it doesn't seem like a very good system.)

I am also reading another but I took it off the nightstand before I took this pic because some shiz is private from Some People Reading) (not to you, you can ask and I will gladly tell you).

NOT on my nightstand: my glasses. Even though they should be. I can't find them, again, story of my life, whatever.

5. What do you order from the movie theater concession stand? Small popcorn and the largest size of diet coke (for to share!) because only the largest size gets refills, and I want the option for the refill, even though I never actually get it refilled.

6. Do you have a garden? What’s growing? I have some flowers in some boxes on the deck, planted by the previous owners. (They couldn't pay their mortgage and a third of the house was termite-destroyed, but sure! Keep the flowers alive!) Other than that, I do not garden. Although, Nathan wants to plant some dinosaur garden this summer, some something about prehistoric plants that would have grown when dinos roamed? I might humor him on that. He put it on the summer bucket list! It is now sacred!

7. Any summer plans? Well, the dinosaur garden, apparently. Especially now that I have told the internet about it, I have to. Also learning to get into a rhythm with Ali. Also sitting by my pool and reading, hopefully a lot. Also, a week at Montreat with Nathan again for youth conferences. Also, probably more crying than in some other summers. Just putting that out there.

8. Which TV couple(s) are you rooting for? Julia and Joel. (And, in case we never get to see them again, I will put my emotional cheering into Mindy and Danny instead.)

9. What’s the last thing you bought? I can't remember, so I will go out on a limb and say... something from Starbucks? (Oh wait! The new iPhones. I bought those today.) If I wait til tomorrow to post this, I can maybe say new jeans. I think I might need to make a jeans purchazzie tomorrow, because none of my pants fit, because mono. (Not that I recommend the mono diet. I stridently dis-recommend the mono diet.) Hmm I should take a picture like in a diet ad. Should I do it?

(I did it.)

10. What’s one thing you are passionate about? I feel like I always answer this type of question about apostrophe usage, but that is mostly a joke. (Not really. I am dead serious about it.) But also, I think: inclusive language. I am more and more bothered/ranty/willing to fight about how we talk about things, especially in terms of privilege, and propagating stigma. I know that all sounds like a bunch of nothing but I don't have it in me to be more articulate about it right now. Friday! Lazy! Language! Passion! Something!

11. What are you grateful for this week? My awesome Marky who lets me be as chatty or as quiet as I need to be, always. Another Nathan who makes time for me and our creature-of-habit habits, even when his own life gets crazy. My sister who is always in my phone and understands me. My minivan. My guest house fridge full of gatorade. And warm spring weather that is freaking gorgeous. Oh! And a pool to sit beside in said weather.

The rules say I must now tag eleven bloggers: Emily, whose answers to these things always crack me up. Arwen, who hasn't blogged in too long for my taste. Elsha, who (apparently) already knew I would tag her. And Emu, who can use this bloggity survey to kill time while she is in labor any day now.

I'm on a Boat! (Don't Call the Ship a Boat.)

Look! I am all bloggity caught up! And it is (yet another) emotional week here, so let's talk about our cruise! We went on a cruise!

The most important thing to know is that my spleen did not explode. (Someday I will stop talking about the frikking mono. Apparently that day isn't today.) The second most important thing to know is that this was a kid! free! cruise!

(Well, there were kids on the boat.* Just not my kids.) (*Apparently if you call it a boat, you get scolded. It is a ship. A boat is a thing you get on when the ship sinks. We have been on many cruises and had never heard it explained... quite like that.) (Somewhere, my maritime-oriented brother is reading this and hanging his head in shame. Don't call it a boat, Erin!)

So, pictures, for no other purpose than preserving my own memories and hoping that for once I don't have to be the one feeling jealous that someone else got to go somewhere tropical:

on the top decks of Enchantment

I love him. That is all.

Our ship, from Coco Cay

In light of Mark's promotion, Another Nathan made him take this pic
and I am *so glad* because nothing about it doesn't make me laugh.

Cruise ships are so tacky-fabulous they are hard to describe.
Just... whoa.

But some of the cheesiness is totally fun. I will never not love towel animals.

Make sure your travel group includes dapper friends in suits.
You will not hate it. #ProTip

We took a sunset sailing trip around Paradise Island (now home to Atlantis)

my bestest fraaand
(not even seasick this time)

Enchantment of the Seas, at twilight (docked in Nassau)

He's on a boat! (Actually a boat.)

Coco Cay with my very own Marky

On a cruise ship! With champagne!
(Even mono cannot get me down!)

We spent our days in the sun -- by the pool, and one day at the beach, and one day wandering through Nassau where it was hot as the blazes but we found respite at a random rum distillery. We shared bottles of wine every night at dinner and spent our evenings at cheesy shows and floating in the indoor pool and sitting in the breeze of the top deck in the dark. (And one night in a hot tub, drinking tropical bevvies and gawking at beautiful people dancing by the edge of the pool.) We went late to our muster drill (not late! everyone else was early!) and collected hate-stares from the hundreds of people we had to walk by on the way to our lifeboat. We had a sting-y encounter (minor, but still sting-y) with the remnants of a jellyfish. We bought Christmas ornaments shaped like the ship. We spent the second half of the week avoiding a super awkward family from our first night at dinner (we saw them everywhere). We got to snuggle late into the night and late into the morning and keep no kind of schedule at all. We played car games and we all read long books, and most of us got sunburned, but only in odd patches, because of course. We made the same dumb jokes all week, in terrible caribbean accents. It was everything I could have wanted in a week away from real life, is what I'm saying.