Last week was our annual beach week with Mark's family in the OBX. We usually "rent" a condo that my mother in law's boss owns and gives to her for free once a year but this year it was booked before he could set aside the week for her. We were bummed at first {because a free house on the beach is awesome!} but it was a blessing in disguise. Last year we started talking about eventually needing to rent a bigger house since the girls were getting bigger and this forced us to make the change this year! We were able to rent a beautiful house on the beach for a decent price since the week before Memorial Day is still "off season" and it was worth paying the money! The girls had their own rooms, there was a pool and a hot tub, and direct access to the beach.

We had a fun week but it started off a little rocky. Lilly ran a temperature of 105.3 that landed us in the ER because she wasn't responding to me very well. Thankfully after 3 hours in the hospital they determined it was just a virus and to alternate Motrin and Tylenol. She missed out on the first 2 beach days as Mark and I took turns staying in with her but she lived it up the rest of the week! Thankfully none of the other girls caught what she had!

Last week was our annual Beach Week trip with Mark's family! We're starting to outgrow the little condo we stay in now that we have 2 toddlers and 2 babies filling the space up with all of the things, not to mention vacation with 2 kids is even more work than vacation with one buuttttt its totally worth it.

 We had some rainy days and some really nice beach days. We did some shopping, had a tornado warning one night, and I may have dressed the girls in matching outfits every. single. day.

We worked through some severe toddler anxiety regarding the beach with Reaghan. I wish I could say we overcame by the end of the week, but she was still terrified on our last beach day. Once we were down at the beach for a little while she would slowly start to relax and enjoy herself and even wanted to be carried down to the waves to SEE them {touching the water was out of the question} but her initial reaction at the top of the dunes was to have a meltdown because she was scared. So thats what I mean by work through. It completely caught us off guard because she's been to the beach here at home this season without any issues and even our first beach day on Monday in the OBX she didn't have any anxiety, but when we went back to the beach on Thursday she was a mess. Toddler's are super fun sometimes you guys.

Here's a little recap of our week:

Every year Mark's family spends some time down in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. His mom is gifted a free week at her boss's condo that's located on the water in Nags Head. Usually Mark and I go down for just the weekend, but this year we spent the whole week there with his parents and sister's family. Not only was it our first vacation of the summer, it was our first vacation with Reaghan!

Seriously, I felt like we packed our entire house. Since it was our first time going away with Reaghan for an extended time I kept thinking of all the possibilities, so I packed way too much stuff. haha when we pulled out of our driveway I turned around to look back at everything and realized it was a bit on the ridiculous side. I mean - there wasn't any room for another human to sit - so I'm really going to have to rethink my packing needs when the next kid comes along!