in an attempt to spice up our life a little, and not sit around all weekend in this stupid house, we made a semi-spontaneous decision to head to boone with the fam. and then we also made the decision to have me go up a day early to have some alone time without the fam. […]
vacation
anna and derek in the big apple to see ponyboy.

i had high hopes of getting either derek or anna to write this blog post, but it looks like you’re stuck with me. i’ll do my best, considering i wasn’t even there. ok. so. it goes like this. anna is OBSESSED with the outsiders musical. we thought it would be a super cool birthday gift […]
thanksgiving in batavia.

since we didn’t make it to ny all summer, we decided to head up for thanksgiving this year. when we homeschooled and then in covid and then when the schools gave a whole week for thanksgiving, it was a lot easier. but with kids in activities and work and my school, it was a little […]
vance joy. round two.

as you may or may not know. we are huge fans of vance joy. we fell in love with him when we lived on the road. i can even remember where we were during the time when we discovered his music. hazel, only three at the time, knew all the lyrics to several songs, and […]
summer beach trip. last days.

alrighty. time to wrap this thing up. when anna and derek returned from their fishing trip, we still had a whole afternoon to kill. as you may have heard, two thirds of the kids were very much over the beach. we decided it would be a good time to do some shopping and sight seeing. […]
summer beach trip. anna and derek go fishing.

ok. so, just like derek always plans a day for me to go for an epic side quest hike or adventure when we are on trips more conducive to such activities, when we are near large bodies of water, derek plans an epic side quest fishing trip (epic for him, not me). on this trip, […]
summer beach trip. more beachy days.

after a day off of basking in the hot summer north carolina sun, the kids were game for driving to the point of oak island and taking a little sunset walk. we took lots of purple-y pics. ruby loved the more calm waters and the weird sand embankment. we met a crusty crab. and looked […]
summer beach trip. the aquarium, etc.

while i would be happy just chilling at the beach with a book for the entirety of our vacation, it turns out that kids seem to need more activities. which likely explains all the minigolf and aquariums and such. my boss/friend teresa’s fam has a home at oak island and gave me a hot tip […]
summer beach trip. first days.

i’m not gonna lie. after our michigan trip, i wasn’t super excited to load us all back up in the car for another family vacation. but this one was a much shorter commute and would hopefully be a bit more laid back. you know. beaches and all. so we loaded up the posse, including ruby […]
down the final stretch…

after madison, we really had nothing to do but make our way across the country to home. of course, we found a few little stops along the way, but it was mostly a ton of driving. by derek. our route took us to an old familiar city that i really had never expected to see […]