The beach bums are back

Well, we made it back from an amazing vacation at Sunset Beach in North Carolina. My brother and his family live in Raleigh, so we flew up there last Thursday and spent 4 days at the beach and then another 2 back at their house.

A friend of my brother's let us borrow his incredible beach house, and it really could not have been better.

My parents were in heaven having all of their family there, and the kids had a blast playing together.

Ethan wasn't too sure about the ocean at first, but after he realized that the waves weren't thunder (we had to explain this several times), he discovered how much fun it can be to run from the waves. And he also really enjoyed hunting for seashells. He would find the tiniest ones on the beach and just be so excited to show them to us and put them in the bag.

It was the perfect vacation because we all just relaxed, went to the beach everal times a day, cooked dinner at the beach house and ate outside in the cool breeze, sat on the porch while the kids played, stayed up way too late playing Cranium and card games, etc. I think we'll try and make this an annual Parker/Starr family trip from now on.

And the trip there and back was very easy. We had really been building up the plane ride to Ethan, so he was very intrigued by the seats, the lights, and especially the window. The only snafu we encountered was that my driver's license was expired. Yes, I know my birthday was in April, but I guess I just never think about looking at my driver's license. On the way to NC, all 3 of us had to go through the extra screening process which involved stepping in the apparatus that blows air all over you to make sure you're not carrying any explosive devices.

Then they proceeded to take everything out of Ethan's backpack and my purse, which resulted in me losing some lipstick, hand gel and lotion because I didn't even think to put those in the ziplock bag with the rest of our liquids. Oh well. The trip home wasn't as bad because they let Clay and Ethan go on through, and I just had to be patted down (that was fun) and then have my purse and shoes searched. But, still wouldn't recommend travelling with an expired license...lesson learned.

I never thought we were really "beach people," but apparently I was wrong because it was so hard to leave. Hopefully we'll be back soon with little girl Starr. I'm sure they make very cute bikinis in baby sizes!