Beach Bums

It finally came! Our beach vacation with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, and family galore! The Horn ladies (that's my mom and her two sisters) gathered up a solid representation of their kids and their kids' families and we headed to Carolina Beach, NC. We spent a week soaking up the sun, jumping waves, and just enjoying the company of family. In short, we had a blast.

Here are the two girls, mentally preparing for the week. Abby didn't know it, but she was going to get to hang out with some of her favorites, the Browns, who kept her safe from the storms, the crazy heatwave, and fireworks.

A little morning snoozer after a tough stroller run with mom.

Abs: Guys, I know you have to pack, but did we really give the OK for this? 

 Carolina beach is only about an hour's drive from my parents' home in Wallace, so we made their house our stopping and starting points. Allie's Uncle Jonathan and her cousins Alice and Tim made it in for the first weekend of the trip and our girl was thrilled to see them again. I have a feeling that Grandmom and Grandpa were a tiny bit pleased to have their whole brood of grandkids in one place as well...

Exhibit A.

 Allie felt she had much to teach her younger (by 4 months) cousin, Alice...

Like how to give a proper, enthusiastic hug...whether the other person is ready or not.

Don't worry, little Alice...you'll learn.

Cousin Tim helped show the girls a few tricks of his own as well, like how to get the best performance out of 'antique' toys.

 We packed up from Wallace and headed to the beach.

Baby, it's so humid out, I can't do a THING with my hair.

Allie: 'BEACH BREAKFAST!!!' Alice: 'Oh my...'

One happy Grandmom! (PS, find the goofball...yep, you got it.)

Golf tans only make the beach more fun!

Now, if this isn't a beach body, I don't know what is.

Grandpa, tell me again how tall that wave was that we jumped?

 As mentioned, the best part of this trip was spending time with family. We finally got to meet Allie's second cousin, Cora and if we'd been 2-3 weeks (ish) later, we would have gotten to meet Cora's new baby brother. Ah well, guess we'll have to put another beach trip in the books! Allie got to meet tons of new (to her) family and we're excited for the arrival of another new Nichol, Pete and Alison's son, who should arrive, appropriately so, around Labor Day.

Cora making sure her parents, Geoff and Gena, are safe from the waves.

Beaching it, Eicholtz Family Style.

Allie, hanging out with second cousins, Nathan and Sarah.  The girls clearly couldn't be bothered to look at the camera.

Swimsuit sisters and co.

 Back at the beach house, Allie continued to impart her hugging wisdom on Alice.

Whether....

she wanted it...

or not!

Another happy Grandmom shot!

Wintrode Beach Bums.

 Our whole gaggle invaded a seafood restaurant. It was to their advantage to seat us quickly since we took over the entire lobby, aquariums and all.

Allie, Tim and Cora... mesmerized.

 We had family dinners together most nights, which was right up Allie's alley with tons of people and guaranteed games and giggles.

Sarah and Allie, off to the horsie races!

Ryan, Janna and Aunt Paula, our Colorado contingent. Look closely, there's a future  doctor  in the middle! 

More fun with the cousin crew! True, Sarah, Nathan, Allie and Ben gathered around the iPad, but there was definitely still a respectable amount of old school tag and hide-&-go-seek games to go around. 

The Sister-Grandmoms and their girls.

Now that's one cute couch! (Only missing one second cousin, Jackson, who sent his love from Philly.) Allie's beside herself with joy...clearly.

And of course there's the beach staple...

ice cream.

Hey - you guys going to finish those cones?

Cousin Julie helping to corral the kiddos. Allie loved hanging out with  her!

We took the ferry to Southport, NC for their 4th of July festivities while some of the men hit the links. 

Here you have it, we've just tripled the population of Southport.

Janna says 'Cheese!' (and turkey).

Southport Sisters. (Aunt Paula, Mom, Aunt Patsy, all a.k.a 'Grandmom.')

Back to the waves with Daddy! 

Ahhh, I love this place.

Bounce party!!!

Dessert is served! Nathan and Ben provide the 'cutie' to go with these pies.

And these kids refuse to go anywhere that they can't... DANCE DANCE DANCE!!! 

YEEEESSSSS!!!!

Even the sisters got into the groove (YouTube videos to follow;o). 

 We stole away from the beaches and dance parties long enough to check out the Aquarium at Fort Fisher. Allie loved the fish and their friends.

What? Is there something behind me?

Hmmm, what could I have done to make this trip last longer? Ah well.  Had a blast! Now home to my Abby.  

Sweet Summertime!

It's the beginning of my 6 glorious weeks of SAHM-ing it (SAHM = Stay-At-Home-Mom) for those not in the FaceBook acronym know. I don't know quite how Allie feels about it (she sure does love her teachers and friends at daycare), but I'm very excited to get to spend more time with our girl. Week one (ish) is in the books and I've already lost count of our wagon-rides with Abby, which are requested as 'WALK? WALK?' but strangely enough, Abby and I do most of the walking. We're settling into a fun routine, although it often starts earlier than I would like, and the recent studies touting the benefits of caffeine have twisted my arm to add a cup of high test to my morning breakfast and I feel certain that all are better off because of it.

Here are a few highlights of the Eicholtz Family warming up to summer...

One hot Saturday, we went to a local firestation's safety open house and she picked up some new headware, but honestly, I'm not sure the roads are safer now than before...

Steer clear, folks.

We have a flip! (Look closely on the side :o)

Enter, the official footgear of summer...CROCS!
The smile is courtesy of  looking at pictures of herself on the phone...oh brother.

We celebrated a milestone in the family with the retirement of Barb, ('Grammy to Allie'), after 13 years as mission director of Centreville United Methodist Church. To help celebrate, my parents came in from North Carolina and the church held a reception in her honor after services. Fortunately, it worked out that our niece Alice celebrated an early birthday party for her big 0-1 that same weekend. It was definitely a great way to kick off the summer.

Grandpa, this is called a Blackberry. I'm usually an IPhone Girl, but let me show you a few tricks. 

Yes, you're growing quite nicely, little Alice. Happy Birthday, cuz.

Take me THERE, driver Tim.

I'm sorry, did you want some of this?

If you want to talk Summer, she's all ears.

One guess who chose the seats at breakfast.

So many Grandparents in one place! Happy Retirement, Grammy!

Family Photo in front of the quilt for Barb that was hand-made with love from the CUMC staff. 

Back at the Shaiko residence, we kept the celebration going. Nothing says 'Happy Retirement, Grammy!' like Mr. Potato Head and bubbles, of course...

Like I said...all ears.

No seriously, the bunny was THIS BIG! (She may have inherited her Grandpa's talent for 'embellishment.')

Grandpop and I can chill with the best of them.

What do you mean we can only do this for 2 hours?

Happy Retirement, Grammy...more bubbles, please.

And this past weekend, we had a cameo appearance from one, Sara D. Jones! She's already winning over our girl with chocolate chip cookies...smart Jones, very smart.

There's nothing in my hand, what are you talking about, Mommy?

And with our hot, hot start to the summer, we spent possibly the best $30 bucks we have in a while on a water table that JUST fits on our back 'deck.' HUGE hit! Only problem now is trying to convince her that every minute is not the right minute for 'WATAH? WATAH?'

Water fun in her skivvies and Crocs (and lots of SPF for our little  Casper).

Abs appreciated the new addition as well.

And Allie was taking a few notes from her big sis.

And just in case water fun on the deck didn't scream 'SUMMER,' Allie and Sarah took their parents (that would be us and Celeste and Shawn Buehler) on a family trip to the National Zoo in DC. When she wasn't catching zzz's in her stroller, she loved it.

WOAH!

Checking out the lions from the kiddie-cage...'Let me at 'em!'

Who knew the zoo had a petting zoo? Our local DC tour-guides, the Buehlers, did.

HEY! FISH! HELLO!

Good thing admission is free, considering the puddles were ALMOST as much fun for Allie as the animals. 

Sarah, keeping her parents calm and cool in the DC summer heat.

And Allie, unconcerned with the coolness of her parents (good thing, Al).

Pneu - Life!

HAPPY SUMMER! I looked and realized it's almost been a month since our last blog post and in the hopes of avoiding any withdraw shakes, I'm on the job this weekend! These past weeks have been a bit of a blur and we are definitely ready for summer at the Eicholtz home. Right before Memorial Day, Allie started getting sick with a cough and congestion. I took her in to the doctor's just to be sure she didn't have strep and she didn't, which was great news. But she did have a viral infection in the lungs, which was not great news. They sent us home with a flight mask (a.k.a. a nebulizer) and well-wishes. Two days later, she wasn't getting better and we took her in again (we have a punch card, so I think our next visit is free...not really, but wouldn't that be great?) and on top of the nebulizer treatments they added steroids...which should come with a big red warning label and a padded room. That was Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. On Tuesday, after waking up each morning with a fever and in misery (I say morning, being polite, it was more like 1am each time, which is SO not morning as all of you moms out there know), I took her into the doctor's office along with everyone else along the Atlantic Coast and they told us she had pneumonia. We completed the tri-fecta treatment with antibiotics and went back the next day. Fortunately, that did it and she started turning a corner. She was able to get off the steroids and return to daycare and life was SO much better for all of us.

I, of course, have editorial rights to the pictures I post on the blog, so naturally, I typically choose ones where our girl is full of smiles, but (and I'll whisper this because we know how lucky we've been) Allie really, truly is a very happy girl. After our brief bout of having a toddler with roid rage, hyped up on nebulizer mountain dew, and then finally getting our girl back, I promise to do my very best in the future to not take for granted having a happy, healthy child. Welcome back, Al! We missed you!!!

Fortunately, before Allie started downhill, we snuck in a visit from our very favorite Swedes, the Montys, at our very favorite local hangout, the Unger abode.

Brendan and Allie bonding over 'Bubbles,' the universal language of toddlers.

FREEZE Dance! (Seriously, she stayed like this for a solid 2 minutes. She gets her drama and her dance moves from her Daddy.)

A little tag-team strolling with Brendan, who's clearly the one holding this duo together to get the job done.

All was going well...until...it wasn't...

She was NOT a fan of the nebulizer at the doctor's. Fortunately,  we figured out quickly that if  we let her hold it and added a snuggle session and Veggie Tales, things went much more smoothly.

All rules went out the window as far as napping for our little fever-child, and dress code apparently  went right out the window with it.

We had already bought tickets to go to the strawberry festival for a belated Mother's Day celebration on Saturday and even though she wasn't 100%, she was WAY happier outside of the house than in it (which means we were too!). So, we packed up the car charger for the nebulizer and headed out to beautiful Delaplane, VA for some mountain therapy
.

Still not 100%, but a trooper.

But who can stay unhappy with hayrides and farm animals close by?

Not this girl! Even gave the fans a wave.

And SOMEONE's got to feed the lambs!

On Memorial Day, Grammy and Grandpop came over to watch Allie while Christopher and I participated in different race/workout events in honor of the men and women of the military. My race couldn't have been more convenient since it started a block away and passed by our street twice. Allie had fresh entertainment to help her through the day and she even made it to the corner to wave me on. We were super thankful for the reinforcements.

Being sick is no excuse for losing your cool...

Allie and Grammy snapped an action photo from the wagon-viewing station. (I promise I ran the whole thing, even though this looks like I'm strolling casually.)

Post-race Pic. You get to stay in your PJs as long as you want when you're not feeling well. House rules.

We saw a lot of this face that weekend...

But we still put on our Memorial Day best!

And we went to our 'happy place' more than once. The best $11.99 I ever spent was for the bubble maker  in the background that bought us 15 minutes of a happy girl.

But even the bubble-maker couldn't make everything better :o(.

Yep...

That's our girl pretending to take her own temperature. She knows the drill. 

But then...the storm clouds passed and the skies opened up! She finally turned the corner and started feeling SO much better!

I've missed being happy!!!

Thanks for everyone's well-wishes, guys! I'm doing MUCH better :o).

OH!!! Life is good!