Beach Week 2011

So as I mentioned on Monday, Darrell and I spent all of last week on Topsail Island, NC with his family. It's an annual trip, and one we always look forward to. Not only is it one of the few times a year that we get to see Darrell's family, but it's also an incredibly fun, relaxing week. I could rave about the week for paragraph after paragraph...but I'll save you the agony of reading that at let the pictures do the talking!

Let the relaxing begin!

Darrell's favorite way to spend his time at the beach--doesn't matter if the fish are biting or not!

Touring the Battleship North Carolina--another item off our 101 in 1001 list!

I can't imagine actually being able to understand what all the knobs and dials do and mean

I'm going to interrupt pictures for just a minute to say that during the course of the week, we watched quite a bit a TV. Usually this would be a treat for us because we don't have cable at home, so we (okay, I) have occasionally gotten sucked into TV show marathons on TLC or HGTV. But this year, we spent our TV time on something much different:

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: probably ten hours
Old School Transformers Shows: probably fifteen hours
Cars: at least 10 viewings
Walle: four or five viewings
Finding Nemo: two or three viewings
Mastermind: seven or eight viewings

And you know what?

For this kid, it was totally worth it. Meet our nephew and godson, John Carlton. Is he not the cutest kid ever?

The reason they make special diapers for swimming--normal diapers get massively waterlogged and saggy

Playing in the waves with Uncle Darrell--sorry for the poor quality, salt spray had gotten onto the lens

The only running you'll ever see me do on the beach

Burying Grandmom's feet

Fishing with Grandad

Jumping over the waves with some help from Mom and Dad

Off the Jolly Roger Pier--the house we stay at is along that stretch of beach you see in the background

Cuddling with Aunt Jess on the last day

I couldn't resist this parting shot--even though we get plenty of relaxation at the beach, Darrell always wears himself out by getting up to fish every morning at six. He'll always take a nap in the afternoon--and it just so happened that this afternoon we were at the airport!