HHI {candid}

A few wks ago we decided to take the trip we planned and paid for during the winter time because it was the only thing I had left to hang onto to find joy these last 4  months.

Cancellation after cancellation for weddings, births (will I ever be allowed to shoot in a hospital again?) and portraits. We were supposed to shoot out of town over spring break

and then again in the fall, both things I was very much looking forward to, cancelled. We have found the silver lining in so much during this pandemic though. A cleared calendar!

Hell yes. It hasn’t all been financial stress and mourning all the things the kids can’t do. We had fun with homeschooling and doing so many fun projects we’d never have the time to

do otherwise. We finally ripped out the dead rose bushes and planted a garden we’ve talked about for 7yrs, which has been the coolest learning experience for all of us. Baking and

cooking with our own(literal) fruits of our labor has been amazing!😍 Though the last few days, the pollen and weeds have my allergies dealing with some inner ear non sense

as well as all the sneezing!! 🙄 Apparently, I’ll be gardening while masked now too!! But thankfully Claritin clears it right up assuring me its not the ‘Rona. Also, for the first

time in 10yrs I’ve gotten to enjoy the beautiful weather and the pool with my kids! They’ve always gone with sitters down there while I work my ass off day and night. This yr

I even had a hell of a furlough base tan before going to vaca! Didn’t even get the vaca burn!

So we decided to pack all our groceries in totes, pack light clothes since we didn’t plan on leaving our condo besides pool and beach and make the drive regardless of the

US burning down around us. We stopped in Asheville to hike to various waterfalls first!

Here’s a whole blog of iPhone shots from Adam and I.

Nori, who didn’t want to be wet, realizing Reese really loves water!

We hadn’t even gotten to the beach and the boys declared it the best day of their lives. 🤣

Off to the island! Nori spent all the rides in the Cowell’s car. She was smart choosing to take care of a baby over the disaster in the back of the Mothership.

Pic for the grandparents letting them know WE MADE IT!!

We immediately changed and went to the beach cause DUH!

Besides our neighbors with girls their ages, the pool was always just us. WINNING on the avoiding people chart!

 I had kept the boys in puddle jumpers whenever both in water they can’t stand in  cause

my FEAR and their lack of fear! But after the first day they were committed to swimming without them.

The kids slept on the floor in the loft. Yep, that was a massive window that woke them up with the sun the next day. I was proactive in bringing all their masks,

but they were all too excited once the room filled with light to go back to sleep. 😟

We may as well have had a private beach. IF there was anyone, the closest they sat was 30-50yds away! ANOTHER WIN!

Kids enjoyed gaining inches on him while he sunk into the sand. 😆

Ezra, you’re doing it wrong….

Reese carried around sunscreen all day and night.

😍😍

Oh look, the dragons are screaming at each other! I’ve never seen such thing!!

Our daily walk down the road and through the trees to the beach!

Our solution was to build a fort. It def gave us til 730-8a each day. 🙌🏼

Adam bought us neck gators for anytime we might have to interact with humans.

They think they’re ninjas. It’s perfect.

We got ice cream a couple times down the street in the evenings it didn’t rain.

Cause 4th of July.

Can we talk about how I’ve brushed my hair once since February? And that wasn’t even me! Carly did it while dying my mousy gray head of hair.🤣 I use my fingers in the shower

and just get out and don’t touch it again. It all falls into my “I have no more shits left to give in 2020” attitude. I didn’t even remember to pack a brush or curling iron for our

family pics because I’m so out of routine of having to be presentable. I mean, also let’s be honest, I’ve always put the least amount of effort possible into my face and hair,

but this is a new level of I DONT CARE YALL.

Prettiest little beach bum!

Hottie with a sun burn and fish-hooking mama.

Funny that they made the same evil expression.

😍😍

Unfortunately there was lots of rain that week BUT it was totes ok. Overcast was good for the kids as 7 days of hot hot sun is exhausting. The actual rain wasn’t bad as we

swam through it or it happened in the evenings as we were eating dinner in the condo and had no plans to leave anyway!

Can’t even deal with it.

She was supposed to be dancing all spring/summer and well, we know that didn’t happen. She was bored and dancing around.😍

Just like Nico does when Nori is dancing and is obnoxious behind her, Ezra ran up and took the opportunity to join in. You can *kinda* tell from the first frame how he strut up

to them like, “oh I can do this too!” The girls didn’t even realize it, which made it all the funnier!!

They introduced Chase to Fortnite!🤣

That snuggle lasted 30seconds before Daddy had to join..which is very similar to the jealously the boys have when one of them is on my lap. 🧐

When NoJo was 2.5, Rach was 18 and skipped school to go to HHI with us to babysit while we shot a couple weddings.😍 The image on the right is peanut NoJo wearing the same

dress as Reese at 15mths.  She also wore all Nori’s bathing suits all week long too. So much nostalgia! We loved seeing her in all Nori’s clothes!

Our big night out the last night, we went and got ice cream and airbrushed shirts for the kids because sometimes you just can’t pass up the authentic vaca vibes shirt🤣

The Pace Circus left the beach but the Cowell’s moved to a new spot and carried on for a second week! NoJo decided to stay with them too! LUCKY!

(sorry about the intense wide angle lens distortion around all the edges.🤣)

I’d say we did an exceptional job of staying to ourselves! All meals at the condo, excluding the date night each couple had to an outdoor restaurant. I mean, driving we even stopped

and peed in the woods because we didn’t want to or even couldn’t go into places to go. 🤣 HHI was all masked up and we felt so much safer there than we did returning home. This

is such a wild time but I’m glad I got to get out of the funk for a minute and fully forget for a week that life was still so sweet. And it was such a cheap vacation of doing nothing.

We all only wore like 1/4 of what we packed bc we basically only wore swimsuits (without coverups) and pjs. Repacking our bags was me saying to myself, every beach vaca needs to

be this cheap and uneventful. It was perfect.  Thanks for scrolling. 💞

Heart, Melanie