Beach Days– Part 1

I am so thankful that Hurricane Irene only set us back one day!!  We were going to leave early Saturday morning but had to wait until Saturday mid afternoon to leave.  We arrived about 8:30 pm Saturday night!  The trip down was God sent!!  Ryder slept the entire time and Maddox was GREAT!!  We let him have his passy the whole way and bought a DVD player to go on the headrest…money well spent!!  We only stopped one time and that was to eat supper!!  I pray the ride home goes that smoothly!!

We were about 20 minutes from the beach and the sky looked like this!!  God’s creation is just miraculous! 

Ryder was happy to be out of his car seat!

I heart all pics of Mawmaw holding Ryder!

Sunday morning we headed down to the beach.  There is a story behind the traveling gnome.  I think I have already told the story but if so…I’m going to tell it again b/c it has even more significance now.  The gnome was a dirty Santa gift that my Mom ended up with this past Christmas.  Nobody really wanted the gnome b/c…what do you do with it?  Well, Mom decided to start taking it everywhere…vacations, events, etc. and take a picture of it.  Fun idea, right?  She also decided to wrap it up and bring it as a dirty Santa gift this year so that another family gets it and can carry on the new tradition!  Now, the gnome is more treasured b/c my Aunt Helen who recently passed away was the one who brought the gnome as her dirty Santa gift.

Ryder’s first time on the beach!!

Thank goodness for our tent!  My skin does not need more skin cancers!!

I don’t think Maddox is a sand lover…at least not right now.  He doesn’t care for the ocean either!  He gets it honest…Chris nor I love the sand or water.  Chris loves the beach b/c of the fishing and I love the beach to just sit under an umbrella and read a good book or magazine, take a walk along the breakers and let the water hit my feet or just sleep!! (oh yeah…people watching is fun too)

Ryder has found his hands and has been sucking on them like crazy!!  He has found his thumb a few times…too cute!!

Oak Island doesn’t offer much in entertainment other than the beach so one thing we like to do is Dairy Queen!  Vacation is the only time I will visit DQ on a daily basis!! Losing baby weight will have to be put on hold!! ha!

Hurricane Irene…Please Go East!!

Seriously?  I can’t believe our one vacation for the year is going to get interrupted by a Hurricane!!  I have been fortunate to have a low stress, stay at home, fun summer so I am not going to gripe too much about not getting a vacation but on the other hand, my poor husband NEEDS A VACATION!!  He has been very stressed at work and deserves so much to get away!!

So prayers are going up for all the people that will be affected by this Hurricane.  I know my vacation is trivial compared to the devastation that a storm like this can cause.

On another note..I had the honor of shooting these beautiful girls on Tuesday. Keleigh is Elynds Mom and Ashleigh is Keleigh’s sister.  I am by no means a photographer but it is fun to do pictures for friends!!

All photography blogs and tips I have ever read have always said that “lighting makes all the difference in photography”.  Tuesday evening  I found “my” sweet spot.  I finally captured that sparkle in the eyes!!  This pic is SOOC!!!  (well actually I did adjust the shadowing just a tish)

Our neighbor Alissa and her bunny!

 

 

This pic was taken when it was almost dark outside and I didn’t use a flash!!  Can you tell I was motivated to play around with my camera!!