Beach Time, Oh Yeah

The McPeak family have been talking about renting a big beach house for about three years. Every single year since 2008, one of the McPeak girls got hitched and we couldn't pull together another family gathering, aside from Christmas, until 2011. Three new additions later, (Faven (7 1/2 m), Carter (13 m), and Layla (28 m)) we took a vacation to Outer Banks, North Carolina earlier this month. We had a blast! Here are some highlights from the trip.

A million more beach photos can be found here.

We flew 4 1/2 hours to BWI and stayed the night before the 5+ hour drive to the beach the next morning with with Tim, Megan and Carter. Megan and I drove with the big kids in one car and Joey and Tim drove down with the babe in an other. Carter was a dream child. He didn't make a peep because he was stuffing his chubby face with Cheerios while watching Layla squirm in her seat. Faven made a nice poop explosion up her back, but over all, the boys had an easy ride with a baby doll in the back seat of their car.

We weren't sure if Layla would dive or tip toe her way into the water. Layla went all out and loved everything about the beach!

A typical schedule looked like this - as always, the focus was on sleep and food:

Faven, Layla, and cousin Carter wake around 6:00am. They eat and go on an hour walk with Grand-pap around 8:30am. Faven naps for 1 1/2 hours starting around 9am. We all walk down to the beach around 10:30am. We come back home for lunch and put Carter, Faven, and Layla down for a nap around 1pm. The kids nap for 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 hours while the adults go back in the water or explore other parts of OBX. When the kids get up, we all jump in the pool until dinner time. After dinner, we play games and mess around with the kids. Faven goes down for the night at 7:00pm. Layla is down around 8pm. The adults have a few drinks and play games.

This is the first picture of the McPeak siblings taken in a while without a baby on board. Needless to say, several late nights and plenty of drinks were had.

Grandma with her two youngest grandchildren. I think just about everyday my Mom said how happy she was to have everyone under one roof. We all agreed.

Joey's best friend, Kev and his family were so kind to take a two hour drive to visit us for the day. Two year old Wyatt, Layla and Faven had a ball. The following morning, Kev and the boys went on a golf outing.

Faven really liked walking on the beach. She was mesmerized by the waves crashing. Now that Carter can walk, he was not too thrilled to be stuffed in baby carrier. He walked half of the way back with help from his Aunty Em.

Faven in ruffles.

She was sitting well and attempting to scoot around the house. She loved all the attention which led to long naps! Each family/couple took turns cooking dinner for all. Layla helped us cook one of our side dishes, hot sausage.
While poor Faven was getting sick from turbulence on the airplane, Layla played with her cat, named Kitty, of course, and watched a ton of shows on our mac. It was a big treat for Layla to watch (our limited dvd collection) Ruby and Max, Dora the Explorer, and Baby Einstein (she loves the puppets). Faven was good as new when we got off the airplane.

When finally got home 10 days later, Layla walked in the house and asked me where everyone was. She started to cry and we hugged. We all had a wonderful time on vacation and miss our family back East.