We had crab night for Kaya’s birthday – my FAVORITE night at the beach. My crab consumption is limited only by time, since it takes a while to eat crabs and I need my hands to take care of the 16 kids to take care of (or at least it feels like 16). Kaya and Laney share my love of crabs, although they are still too lazy about doing the work so Tommy had to step in. Maggie ate chicken nuggets, as usual.
Beach sleep is the best kind of sleep
Holy cow – how can Kaya be 8 years old already? We are so proud of the incredibly responsible, always willing to help, brilliant, inquisitive, and visionary little girl that she has become. Happy birthday Kaya! (Also I realized it has also been 8 years since I have not had a child in diapers. That’s a lot of diapers)
Just a boy and his dog at the beach
I can’t believe it’s already been a month since Orly was born – time flies fastest with a newborn. People say the days are long but years are short. Well I think everything is short. Last baby syndrome, perhaps.
This time we have a wealth of options for taking one month photos – we continued our traditional pictures and also snapped one with a really beautiful blanket we received as a present. So blessed! (And for reference, Kaya/Laney/Maggie one month pictures added as well).
We are now proud owners of a Yeti backpack cooler and Maggie is ready to take it to the beach!
We stayed last night at the Douglas Dam Campground, just west of the TN/NC border. The campground was great, although the family fell apart when we first arrived (Kaya and Laney managed to get covered in mud, Maggie slipped in the shower and bruised up her arm, Orly witching-hour screamed for a while, and Penny the puppy tried to eat everything in sight). But we woke up refreshed this morning – I took Penny for a swim and then sat in the shade with her and Orly (theme of the trip) while the other girls and Tommy swam in the lake. Then Kaya made everyone turkey sandwiches (thanks Kaya!) and we hit the road for home. Also, baby yawns are the cutest.
We stayed last night at the Beech Lake Family Campground, which was really nice, although we didn’t actually see very many other campers. Usually despite the campgrounds having many RVs, people are outside in the evenings and mornings. Here, there were a bunch of RVs and no people to be found – it was a little eerie. But, they did have a great swimming sandy beach on the lake, perfect for our clan. Then we hit the road for another 5 hours of driving to cover some distance home.
Now that we have a new puppy, the RV suddenly feels very chaotic and small and Tommy and I both kind of feel like getting home. Luckily, we anticipated this and so spent much of the day driving. But we did manage to get to the wading pool before we left to let the kids burn off some energy before we hit the road. (Yes, that is Kaya mid-air, and yes, those are all American flags. There are LOTS of American flags in this part of the country. This here is Real ‘Murica)
Today was the day we have all been waiting for (and the purpose of our trip to Arkansas, which may not have been our first choice of destination for sightseeing in July, otherwise)! Introducing Penny Pickle Rose, our new brown beauty Portuguese Water Dog. We have been waiting several months for her to be born and ready to join our family, and we welcome her to the mayhem. So far she is super sweet and the girls are excited to have a new playmate that can actually play (as opposed to sack-of-potatoes-that-cries Orly). She is so cute! (Note: we ripped off our masks only momentarily for this picture with her breeder/mom’s owner Diane. Kaya didn’t even hear me say it, apparently). PS – it was also my birthday!
TheRealRoseFamily 