Beach Trip Highlights

We had a great week of relaxing, drinking, eating, beaching, pooling, cooking, reading...good times. Here are some pictures of the fun:

Here is our beach fort, it was pretty great, plenty of shade, which I took full advantage of. Also used my beach umbrella bag which worked great!

Me, under the umbrella, big floppy hat, sunglasses and SPF 50! I'm not getting burnt!

Best beach game ever, "Kubb". Google it. You set up wooden blocks and have to knock them down w/ wooden dowels. Everyone that walked by stopped to watch for a while, since most people have never seen this game before.
Pool pong. Harder than you would think. Andrew improvised a speed version which worked out pretty well. Having a pool was actually really cool. You would think it is superfluous, but we really enjoyed having another place to relax and cool off. The ocean was a little rough the first part of the week then filled w/ jellyfish the last few days.
Artsy photo!
Would love to be able to go back to the beach w/ friends and family asap, but will have to wait till next year :-(

beach trip #2

4:45 wakeup
5:30 depart
11:00 arrive in Duck
2:00 beach
4:00 check into house
5:00 poolside
10:00 bed

That was day 1. Down in the Outer Banks again, this time with friends. We rented one of those houses w/ 8 bed rooms. So far it's been pretty great. Haven't seen what the beach is like near our house yet, but the pool in the back yard is pretty awesome. This place has three refrigerators! Pictures and updates to come. Gonna test out that umbrella carrying thingy!

Ready for the beach!

I just finished my first independent sewing project, a beach umbrella bag! We are headed back down to the Outer Banks in a week with 4 other couples. When I was down a few weeks ago I had our only umbrella, which had no carrying case and was kind of a pain to carry. I also bought another umbrella knowing when we were both on the beach we would both want our own shade. To solve the problem of carrying two umbrellas I figured I could made some sort of bag. I looked up patterns for yoga mat bags and based my project after them. I wanted a draw string top and a round bottom and a strap. I sort of fudged the pattern and just did my best. The hardest part was sewing the round bottom into the tube, I didn't really know how to do this and it's got some kinks and wrinkles. So if I were to make something more refined I would have to learn how to do this correctly. But as a first project, I'm pretty proud of the result! It fits both umbrellas and looks cute :-) I'll be sure to take some pictures at the beach too!

Two Down

Finished New Moon today on the beach. These books really are easy reads, and the story keeps you interested and wanting to keep reading. Despite that, I am going to take a quick break and read something else before moving on to Eclipse. That is, if I don't miss the characters and story line too much. H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds is next on my list. I always love heading to the "classics" or "summer reading" sections of the library. There are always soooo many books that I know are going to be good or have at least stood the test of time. Tons of books I feel like I should have read in school but never did. I've read Dracula, Rebecca, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Three Musketeers...and so on. It's also funny to see some of the stuff that makes it onto that list these days too. I've really come to enjoy the library system the past few years. What could be better than free books and movies???

Oh, and since I was going to be in the car for 8+ hours I decided to try a book on CD. I got A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseni. I should be about half way through, its at least 11 cds. It is very interesting so far. Easy book to listen to and pay attention even while driving. The fact that the drive is really easy helps I'm sure. Who knows if the book would be the same if you were reading it yourself. But so far I'd recommend it. The few minutes I was in the car today to get bread from the store I turned it on again, and sort of wanted to sit in the car back at the house to finish the short chapter...but I'll have plenty of time on Sunday.

One Book Down

I finished Twilight last night. At about 3 am to be exact. Not that I stayed up late to read, I went to bed at 10 or something lame, but a thunderstorm woke me up so much I knew I couldn't fall back asleep so I just read. I got so close to the end I couldn't just stop with a few pages left so I finished it all. I think I started it on Wednesday or something. Pretty quick read. On to the next one.

Twilight was good, not obsessively good, but I can see how they are appealing [and I'm still reading aren't I]. Even though I'm not the target audience, which is probably 12 year old girls, not 29 yr old women...the romance is still interesting. It has all the usual vampire stuff, along with some characteristics the author made up [different from standard vamp lore] so that the storyline could work. At times that was a little annoying but it works well so far. The most interesting parts were the back stories, or creation stories, how the characters became what they are. This is my favorite part of other vampire stories, Interview With the Vampire, True Blood...I wish there was more of this, maybe there is? I'm about 1/5 or so through New Moon, I'm sure I'll finish it before I leave on Sunday. Thanks to the library and C, I have all the books so I won't be left waiting for more. Definitely good beach reads.

I'm here

Left Elkridge yesterday at about 7:30. Stopped in LaPlata to help the parents finish packing and then we headed south. This is the first time I've driven any distance by myself. The trip was supposed to be about 8.5 hours and we got to Avon at about 4:30 I think. I followed my parents advice and steered clear of 95 and the usual beach routes. So even though it took a little longer it was a nice scenic route. Driving by myself was easier than I thought, though the familiar route helped.

I'm off to suntan lotion up and head to the beach. It's sunny and a little windy and though it's warm, it's much cooler than back home.

It's Official

I've broken down and am reading Twilight! Shhhhh, don't tell my husband, he might just disown me :-) Actually, HE'S seen the movie...but only so he could trash it and be well informed. I figured plenty of other adults have read them and liked the books so why not. I need a good beach read for next week anyway. [more on that to come].

Have a great weekend!