Catching up: Bald Head Island

Considering that yesterday was the first official day of fall, it’s only natural for me to finally post pictures from our lovely beach trip this past July, right?  I’m going to blame some of this delay on the curse of our modern, tech-savvy culture, where one can easily come home from the beach with nearly 500 pictures, grateful for the memories captured and yet completely overwhelmed at the thought of going through them and condensing them into a somewhat manageable group.  Anybody with me?  All complaining aside, much to my surprise (more on that later), we truly had a wonderful time at the beach and are so grateful to my parents for hosting us!
Bald Head Island is unique in that there are no cars on the entire island!  You arrive via ferry along with all your possessions that you have packed away in bins!  Literally, everything you will need for the week (minus the incremental item you can purchase at the local grocery store for about 5x the cost of what you’d pay on the mainland) must come over with you on the ferry.  Needless to say, packing and preparing for the trip, especially since it was our first time, was a bit daunting.  All you parents out there know that just going out for a playdate requires some relatively intense preparation; the thought of transporting everything our entire family would need for a week (including food!) seemed insane.  It actually wasn’t as bad as I’d anticipated, and of course it helped that my mom took care of lots of the details and came prepared with bins upon bins of food for everybody (thanks Mom!). 

It sure was fun riding on that ferry!

This is Wade’s “shy” face He hadn’t seen his Uncle Taylor in a while, but he warmed right up in no time.  (and yes, single ladies, my brother is available, though he’ll probably want to kill me for writing that!)

All three of my brothers greeted us upon our arrival from the ferry.

We loaded up our personal golf-carts and drove about twenty minutes to get to our house.


Our golf cart driver was rather handsome I thought.

Greeted with a cocktail?  Please, and thank you very much!


We took turns preparing dinner each night.  The first night, my brothers Taylor and Andrew whipped up a delicious spread! 




Wade and Graham are quite the combination.  They feed off of each other and while fond of one another, they can be quite the terror as well!  Please note the mischievous smile on Mr. Wade’s face as he interacts with Graham!

Of course vacation is extra special because you get to spend all day, every day with daddy!


This little girl was a delight to my heart this week in particular.  She slept way better than was typical for her, which is a large part of why the week was so much more enjoyable than I anticipated.  I’ve learned something about myself, and it’s really not a great thing, but here it is:  I intentionally set low expectations in situations where I anticipate being disappointed.  I think the right term for this kind of behavior is that it’s a defensive mechanism.   And it’s no way to live.  So I’m working on it. 
In this situation, I prepared myself by kind of dreading the week.  I was sure I’d be up throughout the night, leaving me tired and grumpy during the day.  I honestly miss vacations pre-children because let’s be real, a re-location is more what it feels like a lot of the time.  Especially when you’re a stay-at-home mom and you <gratefully> spend your days with your babies already.  It was kind of funny because all week, I would talk about how I never would have imagined Holland sleeping so well, how she never sleeps like this, and on and on and on.  My dad laughed and made the observation that it was kind of ironic that Holland was sleeping well and yet he still had to hear about it!  Funny, and true. 

Everyone knows bath time's more fun when done in the sink!
Another important thing to note about our beach trip was the presence of two very special people:  Graham’s official caretaker, Jason, and his lovely wife Heather.  My family has experienced vacations over the years with no extra help for Graham, and quite frankly, it’s really hard, and my parents don’t get to relax at all.  So, this year Jason and Heather came along, and what a blessing it was!  Heather happens to be a rather talented make-up artist (I keep telling her she needs to start charging people!), and so naturally I asked her to give me a makeover at about 9:30 one night.  As if you can’t tell, I found this to be extremely relaxing, and I nearly fell asleep!

I feel a little silly showing you this next one, but you need to see the finished product, right?   Heather took it upon herself to do a little “contouring” on my nose.  Apparently, this is a make-up technique where you can actually alter the look of your features!  (As if we aren’t vain enough already…)  Now, I’ve always thought my nose was just fine, but I think it’s kinda crazy how she actually made it appear more narrow!  Can you tell?! Ha!

Ok. back to reality with a baby on my hip.

Holland was very into her little snorting phase during our beach trip.

Mimi’s turn!

We definitely enjoyed some of these:

And I wish I could show you my hubby’s famous guacamole, but we gobbled it up too fast!

Good times over dinner.

Would you believe me if I told you I had more pictures?  It’s true.  So I’ll be back.