Topsail 2024 + a little visit from Mom and Dad

This summer has been pretty great so far, I have to say. We had our annual beach vacation a couple weeks ago, and we were only missing Sophie and her family this time. They are in the process of buying a house, so it's an exciting time for them, but they and their sweet boys were missed. Now it's almost the end of June, and I am enjoying a few slow, lazy days before we make the trek to Massachusetts.

Sunrise--a view that I never saw with my own eyes because I like to sleep too much. Fortunately Tim is an early bird, and so I have pictures like this.

They were laughing because Tim was telling us that she had tried to greet him with a handshake when we'd all arrived.

We brought one of Annie's best friends, Annabelle, who was visiting from Texas.

This was our first time renting a triplex. and I think almost all of us loved it. We loved having this big common area, and the option of a pool. The little kids were in that pool every day for hours, and there were pool guys there every morning keeping it clean. The one drawback to being in the triplex, as one of my brothers-in-law pointed out, was that because we were not as spread out along the beach as we always have been, we had less of the beach to ourselves. A minor annoyance.

Thomas and Israel played together well.

I loved having coffee in the morning with views like this--Elise loving on little Forest.

They had a lot of fishies in this bin.

It wasn't me!

The hot tubs were a huge hit, most of all with the teen boys. A couple people witnessed my dad, Robert and big Joey in a hot tub together one night, but alas, no one took a picture.

I was loving their style.

We liked our unit. There was lots of comfy furniture, all of the stuff we needed in the kitchen, and adequate bedroom space for all of us. Our room got very bright in the morning, which kept me from sleeping in too late.

We had balconies on the street side, probably for the sole purpose of watching the sun set over the sound.

Thomas is still avoiding being in water, but on the night of day 5 I think it was, he was having so much fun on our beach walk, he ended up a little wet. It's pretty hard to resist the ocean when it's a beautiful day and the temperature's just right. I said to Tim, "Remember how when the big kids were little, there was no such thing as just dipping their toes in!"

Once our week at Topsail was over, Mom and Dad stayed at our house for three nights, and that was really nice. The last time they stayed in New Bern, it was at an Airbnb down the road, and it just wasn't the same. I hope this can be the start of a new tradition.