Oak Island

The Beach House was a great time, but all great things have to come to an end. However, we have all decided we will be making it an annual occurrence. We spent the week at Oak Island, NC with our close friends, Katie and Jay. Holden had a blast, he sang the Beach Song "going to the beach, going to the beach" every morning running circles around the living room. It was truly a vacation for Holden, he got to watch movies all the time (The Incredibles were watched daily), had a menu of hot dogs, mac & cheese and PB&J pretty much every day and endless bike rides.

Holden loved the beach, its still amazing how much he likes the water compared to last year. He's a bit fearless so we had to go and buy a life jacket after the first day as he wanted go in deeper water with Dad. Jeremy took him into deeper water the first day (before we had the life jacket) and I freaked out. Not that Jeremy wasn't holding onto him tightly, or that I didn't trust him but I could just see a wave take out Jeremy and he lose his grip. Its been a while since I had a moment like that but that is why we now have a life jacket, and surprisingly Holden didn't mind wearing it to go out and swim with Dad. Good thing we are in swim lessons.

Holden would get to our spot on the beach, immediately take off his sandals and run towards the water. Fearless I tell you. I can envision visits to the ER in my future.

Jeremy burying Holden in the sand

We took a road trip one day to Fort Fisher, the NC Aquarium and the USS North Carolina Battleship. Holden took his first ferry ride and loved it. Jeremy obviously loved the battleship (see the photo with him shooting the guns). Katie and I also got to spend a day shopping in Southport and have a nice relaxing lunch.

Southport to Fort Fisher Ferry, being cool like Dad.

NC Aquarium, we currently really like Alligators

USS North Carolina deck

Our childhood friend, Nick, showed up on the last couple of days to join in the fun. It was his first time hanging out at the beach as he has only lived in the Charlotte area for little over a year. Needless to say, he made the classic rookie mistake and got really sun burnt. Although, the rest of us seemed to make the same mistake on the last day also, funny how that happened. I'm just glad the sunburns didn't occur on Day 1.
I had to add this last photo, which classically shows how cooperative Holden is for photos lately. We can't wait to do it all again next year.

Family Visit

My mother-in-law came to visit over the last week along with Jeremy's 14 year old nephew. We took them to Myrtle Beach for a long weekend and my MIL got to spend some much needed quality time with Holden. Of course because we were having too much fun, I don't have many photos.

Holden loved the beach, we were really surprised how quickly he took to the ocean this time. Bodes well for the week long beach trip we have planned in July, which I will say I am stoked about. Grandma got him a ring floaty that was in the shape of a tiger and it definitely helped with his courage.

On a side note, we have been in summer heat for over a month now and Holden has taken to any type of water. We started swim lessons this week with Holden's best bud, Cameron. They are going to have a great summer.

Great Smoky Mountains-Crocker Reunion

Photo montage of the family reunion in the Smoky Mountains.Cabin we all stayed in. Slept 54. Great accomodations but for some reason the management company thought 2 regular sized trash bins were big enough for 40 peoples trash over 3 days.

4 generations of Crockers (and the significant others)

Holden and Great Grandma resting at the bottom of the lookout tower. 1/2 mile hike but at a 30 degree angle all the way up.

Making sure we remembered that we made it to the top of the hill

Bush's Baked Bean factory, we stumbled upon the place on our way to Pigeon Forge, TN. In true family vacation style, we stopped, went to the gift shop and got our photo taken.

Pre-Vacation

Its been a while since I've updated everyone, because we have been having so much fun that I haven't taken a minute to write up a post. My sister came to visit a week before vacation to be my nanny for a week while daycare was closed. It was awesome, let me tell you. She and Holden had a great time and I came home to a clean dishwasher and vacuumed floors. Did I mention it was awesome. I also got to spend some much needed quality time with my baby sister, who is almost a college graduate.We had a great time, made a pilgrimage to the local Ikea and got Holden a new table and rug to play on. We got him some crayons and paper and let him have a great time. Only took about 2 hours for crayon to get all over the table and chairs, supposedly its washable.Holden has become the little imitator lately always wanting to help unless its putting toys away. He likes to sweep, mop, throw things in the trash. I might need to remind him of this time when he's 16.
We made some cookies the day before heading to Tennessee for a big family reunion, Holden was having a blast helping.He has picked up a few more signs "more" and "bath" and his favorite words seem to be "mama" and "no". Cute but gets old fast when he wanders all around the house wining "mama".

Family Visit

This weekend Jeremy and I made a trip to the triangle (Raleigh area for the non-Carolinians. Oh boy I think I just called myself a Carolinian). Anyway, we went for the weekend to visit some distant relatives of Jeremy's. His 2nd cousins (his mom's cousins or Jeremy's great uncle's kids, however you want to think of it). They hosted a lovely Saturday afternoon cookout for us and we got to find out all about his great grandfather and grandmother. We stayed through Sunday morning and had a great visit and good food. We got to peak at his great-grandmother's recipe book, that was very neat, all of the recipes clipped from the newspaper and handwritten ones all in the same book. It reminded me a lot of my mother's recipe book, crammed with both clipped recipes and handwritten ones.

One of the things that spurred the visit, is back last year, Jeremy made a trip to Ohio for an officer down memorial service for his great-great-grandfather Enos Rath. Enos was killed in the line of duty back in 1899. The town of Hicksville, Ohio had a rededicating of his tombstone and a true "officer down" memorial with honors. Jeremy was the only direct descendant of Enos Rath that was able to attend the ceremony (as far as we know). Afterward, he was able to get in touch with his 2nd cousins and that is how we got to go meet everyone. In addition, they had some of Enos things that had stayed in the family and were past down. We got to see his police issued pistol and his billy club (which is what the perpetrators beat him to death with).

It was all very cool (for the lack of a better descriptor).

Jeremy with his 2nd cousins
Enos' pistolEnos' billy club