Where has the time gone?! I don't think I would have believed anyone if they would have told me the day Lia was born that we were going to be living in NC a year later. It is awesome to be back. We love our church and it feels so good to have friends over to surround us in celebration of our joy. Friday night after a little Mexican dinner, we went to the Tobacco District in downtown Durham and stumbled upon one of their backyard outdoor concerts. It was awesome. Grace was dancing and lots of other little kids were out running around and dancing too. I think Grace even had a mini-crush on a boy until he had to leave. Her wave to him said everything :)
I will be starting full time work right after Labor Day. It will be in the outpatient vascular surgery clinic for UNC. After having done 3-12's in a row just to get some hours as per diem on my old unit, there is just no way that would be an ideal work schedule for the family. I may as well have been out of town for those 3 days. I would get home just in time to help put the girls to bed. I know it was hard on Dan and it was for me too. I geared up for it and got through it but probably because I knew it was a one time thing and that we'd be going to the beach as soon as I finished.
Dan has 3 potential, promising prospects in the works. We keep praying and trusting God. The right thing will come at the right time. In the mean time we are learning patience and practicing faith and blind trust. Neither of us would wish this on anyone, but I must say it has actually been really liberating to learn how to surrender control. This life is so temporary and money means almost nothing to me anymore. Its like Malachi 3:3- God is refining us as a silversmith, and to make us our strongest, He must first hold us in the highest heat.
Lia was a delicate one with her cake 'smashing'. She went right for it and then couldn't shake the icing off of her hand and that seemed to bother her. She continued to inspect it with her 'hook' but she needed a little help from dad to get eating the cake. Trying to maintain her petite figure I suppose... :)
Feelin' the pressure of living up to big sister's cake smashing of 2 years ago.
Grace and Uncle Dickie
Jeremy, Meredith, Tyler & Avery
Grace, Emma & Zoe
Party People!!!
My two beach bums
Surf City, Topsail Island or Topsail Beach- Glorious!! Ron, Patti, Matt, Christy and the girls came out and we stayed in a beach house for a few days and celebrated the cluster of August birthdays. It could not have been more beautiful and perfect. The weather was more like Michigan than August in NC! And what an awesome beach house. When any one of us were on nap duty, there were lounge chairs on the top deck to lay out on or a hammock on the second level deck with a view of the ocean from either one. I cannot describe the feeling I had when I was in the hammock. I was so relaxed and yet I felt like I could explode with energy and happiness. I have to say that life always looks good from the vantage point in a hammock.
The beach was perfect for the little ones. Every afternoon after the tide has gone out, it leaves behind these awesome tide pools for the girls to splash and play in. The water almost looked like the color of the Emerald Coast of Florida, just with better waves.
We got to watch a sea turtle nest hatching. The full hatching had happened a night or two before and they were going back in to assess if there were any more stragglers or viable eggs left. They found 2 more little baby turtles that had hatched. Once the sun went down and it got dark enough, the two loggerheads made their way down the sand in to the ocean in the dark. Seems like a scary time to enter the huge ocean, but if they tried to make the run (stumble) during the daytime, a seagull or pelican might make them their lunch. They were each the size of my palm. So cool!
'Hmmmm, the world looks interesting this way...'
It runs in the family, I remember Grace doing the 'downward facing dog' yoga pose on the beach at Gulf Shores 2 years ago ;-)
The Grace and Tatum show. Inseparable, best of friends.
Sunset over the intracoastal off of the back deck
Sunrise on the first morning. Lia had me up early; I put her back to sleep and figured I'm already up, its gorgeous. I can always sleep later.
Lia and Pat-Pat
Me and my Li-Li
More of the Grace and Tatum show
reflections...
Look closely, Grace is buried in the sand, shaped like a car (its hard to see before I embellished it with shells.) My mom always used to do this for me on the beaches at Lake Michigan until it was no longer cool to get sand in your swim suit. Grace did not want to get up and ruin her car!
Birthday celebration for 3 out of the 4 Carrington cousins with August birthdays. 18, 19, 20 (me) and 26th. We cooked up a seafood feast; went to a seafood market 10 ft. away from the water. If the smell there didn't say fresh, I don't know what would. Shrimp, scallops and flounder, yummy!!!
The young, blond cousins
Riding the 'roller coaster'
We stopped by the playground on the ICWW on our way home and Grace scaled this rock climbing wall faster than the 6 year old girl next to her. Impressive!
The official birthday picture.
This is some serious business, cake shoveling (I mean eating)
