Emerald Isle Weekend

We took a trip to Emerald Isle for a long weekend away with the Watsons and Hagemans, staying at the Watson Beach House. There were 6 adults and 5 children between the ages of 18 months and 3.5 years old including 4 boys and only one sweet girl! 

Nolan (3.5), Jeremiah (2), and Dale (3.5) playing with the shovels and trucks in the sand.

Lane (20 months) and Haleigh Marie (18 months)
 

Everyone had a blast - played hard, ate plenty, and slept good!

Brannan Family Beach Trip - 2010

For a week in mid-July, we made our annual trip to the South Carolina Coast! This is a week that everyone enjoys! We pretty much stayed on the beach or lounging in the house the entire time. It was absolute bliss!

There was lots of running in the surf and sand.

 

This little boy loved the waves!

 

A fun game of Bocce was played...

but J was not content to just watch from the sideline with G-pa.

So everyone was very patience and Aubrey tried to show Jeremiah how to throw a ball.

And he did!

But he wanted to keep going and it wasn't his turn anymore. A meltdown may or may not have occurred at this point. :)

Thankfully he'd occasionally let us rest and he's play in the sand under the tent.

J & Daddy lounging in the shade

I just love that sweet face!

Special times with Daddy...

 

and occasionally slowed down for a moment to sit with Mommy. But only for a second!

Our only family photo. Had too much fun to take others!

Mountain Trip (aka Getting snowed in during the Blizzard of 2010)

 Brenda (Nana), Jeremiah, and myself had been planning to go to the mountains for a few days in February. We had planned it so Josh and Ken (Popa) could meet us up there and spend a long weekend (President's Day). We were all very excited about this trip - meals were planned, food was bought and cooked so we wouldn't have to worry too much while we were up there relaxing. Well, in line with our extremely snowy winter, a winter storm accompanied by very high winds (sustained 60-70mph and even higher gusts) was supposed to come in the day we were supposed to leave. We decided to outrun the storm and go up the night before. 

Wow...what a SCARY trip! Everything was fine until about 4 miles from the mountain house when it started snowing (and we were really high up on a mountain with those crazy, curvy, mountain roads). We finally make it into their neighborhood, but the road we needed to go on had not been plowed. AT ALL. There was probably a foot of snow we had to drive over. Fishtailing most of the way up, we made it to the driveway (which is extremely steep). By the grace of God, there were some bare places on the side of the driveway to help us get traction as we navigated the driveway. We barely made it up, but miraculously we did, unpacked the car, and were ready to brave the storm. And boy was it a storm! A full 24-hours of snow and wind chill of ZERO. Luckily, the following day was warm enough for some melting, the road was plowed, and I even shoveled part of the driveway to make it a little easier for Josh and Ken to get up. 

But Josh and Ken never got an opportunity to come up because when we woke up on the third day of our trip, we found out we were in for more snow showers. Afraid we wouldn't be able to get out if we stayed and Josh/Ken wouldn't be able to make it up, we quickly packed up and left. I think next time we make a trip, we'll make sure there will be NO SNOW!

Here are some pictures of the pretty snow...

 

 

Some of the deer that paid us a visit.

Jeremiah had lots of fun!

He wanted to wear Popa's boots, which were waist-high on him!

Nana did a lot of quilting, so J thought he'd try out the thimble.

Here's another failed sledding attempt (this time on an aluminum cookie sheet).

Jeremiah was still not a big fan of the snow and wanted to be held...
 

But he finally became more comfortable and LOVED it!
 

My favorite part of the trip was the snuggle time I was able to get in :)

What have we been up to lately?

Josh told me I need to update the blog. He's right, I do. Hopefully I'll get back into my blogging routine soon. Until then, here's a quick recap at what other things I've been busy doing, like...

celebrating a first birthday...

watching this sweet baby girl for 2 weeks...

working on a quilt...

enjoying snack time in the wagon...

relaxing in the mountains...

and chasing after my TODDLER!

The picture is blurry for a reason...it's hard to capture a moving object on film! Well, you know if we used film anymore :)

Beach Vacation

We are back from a WONDERFUL week at the beach! We are definitely a family made for the sand & surf. Here are a few of my favorite pictures (I could only narrow them down to 17!), so the rest are here: http://beckyandjosh.shutterfly.com/

And a little bit of video for your viewing pleasure :)