A day at the beach

Joshua had his first official beach trip this weekend when we visited my family for the holiday weekend. His only previous experience with the ocean was our Myrtle Beach trip this past fall, and the water was SO cold, he freaked out when it touched his feet. We had a gorgeous morning on Saturday, and we all loaded up after breakfast and made our way to Fort Macon. As soon as Joshua saw all that open sand to run and the ocean "wa-wer," he was in heaven!

Not the best picture of Joshua, but I loved this

shot of 3 of my favorite guys all together

(David, Joshua, and my brother Erik)

Joshua testing out the water (one of the few

pictures I took where he didn't run out of the frame

before the shot was over! He was a man on the move)

As you can tell, we got there pretty early, which

was great! Lots of room to run, and lots of people

were out walking their dogs...needless to say,

Joshua LOVED this. "Hi, puppy!"

Playing in the "wa-wer" with his boat

(Later, Joshua and David walked out to a sandbar

and "swam"...and said hello to a surfer)

Grandma had a number of sand toys for Little Man

to play with...he was a big fan of the shovel and

carried it up and down the beach with him as

he visited with the new people joining us on the sand

I was so happy to see that Joshua had so much fun at the beach! We grabbed "ice-keem" (ice cream) on our way home, which was the perfect way to wrap up the fun.

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Other quick updates on our family:

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We sold our Hyundai (which had almost 200,000 miles on it and the AC hasn't worked in over a year and half...hooray for Craiglist!) and got a 2006 Toyota Sienna, which Little Man LOVES riding in. He looks out the window and points out all the different cars he sees...he has learned, either through David or asking me what they're called, a number of different car makes: Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Mazda, VW, Acura, Infiniti...it is pretty hillarious to see how this car obsession is growing. At this rate, we'll never need to take him to a theme park for vacation...we can just visit our local Car Max and he'll be in hog heaven! We are loving all the room in the van (it was so nice for all 6 of us to ride to the beach together in one vehicle!) and it is SO much easier to get Joshua into and out of his car seat, especially with me getting more and more pregnant :) We figure that with our Accord and this van, we should be set for a good 10 years on cars, which is why we went ahead and got a van in anticipation of our growing family.

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I'm approaching 31 weeks in my pregnancy with this little gal, and she is quite the active one. She kicks me down low a lot, which I don't remember with Joshua. I've got a little swelling in my ankles and legs, but nothing compared to this same point in my pregnancy with Joshua. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will continue to be the case! I'm continuing to meet with the UNC Midwives for my prenatal care, and in a few weeks, David and I will meet with one of the doctors from UNC to go over some information regarding my *hopeful* attempt at a VBAC. As long as everything goes as planned, I will deliver with a midwife; the doctor will only be involved if there is an emergency. I'm doing everything I can to make this goal a reality, so keep up the positive thoughts and prayers for us. We are getting so excited to meet our little girl in 2 months, and yet, there are times that I can't believe I'm going to be the mother of TWO little ones! What a challenging blessing lies ahead :)