Excited for Autumn!

Autumn has long been my favorite season and when I woke up this morning, I was reminded that it is quickly approaching.  I love the crisp air that comes with Autumn.  And wearing sweats and cuddling in blankets.  I love the turning of leaves and the beautiful pallet of colors everywhere.  In honor of the approaching of my favorite season, I temporarily took my blog offline to make a completely new layout.  After finding the images I wanted to use and tinkering with html code, it's all complete.  :)

The second half of vacation!

So I was lazy and didn't make any additional posts while on vacation.  Here's a picture update of the second half. :)

Relaxing on the beach.  This was the day I lost those sunglasses in the ocean.  :(

The old schoolhouse we visited on Labor Day.

Another view of the old Corolla Schoolhouse.

The wild growing cactus plant Peter spotted:

Another beautiful sunset picture.  That's actually a restaurant that has a spot where you can go out onto the water to eat.  We didn't eat there because it was packed.  Plus we had already eaten dinner.  :P

Bella has grown up so much and is absolutely adorable!  It just warmed your heart when she came up the stairs saying "good morning!"

Uncle Peter reading Bella a book:

We went to the beach every day.  It was glorious.  I loved just hearing and watching the waves hit the shore.

Enjoying the beach :)  And trying not to miss my old sunglasses too much haha.

"Say cheeeeeese!!"

Peter and Tim enjoyed some frisbee and I was able to snap an action shot of each of them:

How cute is she?!

It was so great to spend part of our vacation with Tim, Vasti, and Bella.  We were able to get to know each other more which was a real blessing.  We've visited everyone else in the family and spent separate time getting to know everyone, but haven't had the time to do so with them yet.  We were so glad to have this opportunity and look forward to doing more things like this in the future.

Peter and Tim making a sandcastle.  Vasti and I helped make some tunnels, too.  After that, the castle making ceased to exist haha.

Our gateway to the beach! haha

Hanna hit on Friday evening-Saturday and we ended up staying until Sunday morning because of the conditions.  We didn't want to risk anything or drive in the storm all day.  Luckily no one rented the house the week after us so we could just stay there.  Sunday morning was sunny and beautiful and we snapped a few pictures before heading home to PA. 

Here's a group shot of all of us :)

All play and no work :)

This morning before heading to the pool, we snapped a picture against our tropical fish shower curtain.  It served as a nice backdrop I think haha.  Very fitting for the beach.

We read in/by the pool for the entire afternoon, taking occasional breaks to swim around.  Then we had lunch and headed to the beach again.  

This huge seagull came up less than 3 feet from us.  I have never really seen seagulls walk up to people unless they had food haha.  It was kinda neat.

Today the Atlantic Ocean really kicked my butt. We were out jumping waves and I totally got pummeled! I'm sure I gave near by beach goers quite a show! There was actually like this big ditch in the middle of the ocean floor near the shore. It went from shallow to deep and then back to shallow. So we were working on getting past the ditch area into the ocean and while talking to Peter a wave came up behind us. Peter was like "watch out!" and thinking that it'd be better to turn my back instead of taking the crash of the wave face on, I quickly spun around, getting knocked over and losing my sunglasses, 1 diamond earring and my bathing suit bottom started falling down. Knowing that there was a roughly 40 yr old man boogie boarding nearby, I quickly grabbed for my bathing suit to cover my butt. In the process the sunglasses were lost. Upon arriving at the surface I discovered one of my earrings was gone too. What a bummer. I totally loved those glasses haha. On the plus side, no one had to see my bare butt! To anyone on the beach it probably looked like I was thrashing around in knee deep water since you couldn't tell it got deeper for a spot in the ditch type area. 

After resting up on shore for a bit after my beating from the Atlantic, we decided to go back to the house and shower up and go out and grab some dinner.  And to look for some new sunglasses for me.  

We wanted to get a picture with this picture on the wall in our house because it says "Our Beach House", but Peter's head blocked out some of it.  Oh well-we know what it says haha.

Unfortunately we forgot it was a holiday, so many places were closed.  We thought we'd head out to the lighthouse, but upon arriving there found out it was only open 9-5 and it was after 6.  Bummer.  So we grabbed some Subway and ate in the car.  After an unsuccessful search for sunglasses, we decided to make the 30 minute drive down to WalMart to look for that and a cheap earring I can wear so my hole doesn't close up.  Yes, second earring holes close up really fast.  

While driving down Rt 12, the only major road here, we saw a great sunset and decided to park the car and get out and watch it.  

You obviously can't see us in this picture because the sunset is behind us, but I still like how it turned out with our silhouettes.

I really wanted to venture out to the end of this dock where these 2 benches were.  I initially saw them on the way into town, but again tonight.  Unfortunately, when we ventured to the dock, it was marked as private property.  I was so disappointed!  This is just such a peaceful looking place to sit.

On our way back to the car, we saw this little lake-ish area with a few of these black swans.

At WalMart I was able to find a replacement pair of sunglasses.  They're not my favorite, but they do the trick and aren't terribly uncomfortable or anything.  And they were only $10 so not that bad.  I also got some studs for my ears and hope they don't get lost this week too haha.  

Upon arriving back to the house, I continued playing Super Nintendo.  They have Mario Bros.  so I've been playing my way through the game.  At first I couldn't remember any of it, but little by little it's coming back.  It's been bringing back memories from my childhood and playing with my siblings and always having my brother Erik beat the hard boards for me haha.