Carolina Beach - Here we COME!!!!! May 28, 2011- June 4, 2011

I can't believe we actually did it! We took Luke on his first vacation via airplane!!!  Now to set the stage... I'm not a very adventurous person.  I like to have control over things and don't like to worry about the unknowns.  I fully understand and have accepted the fact that it makes for a fairly boring person.  But I decided to "buck my system" this summer and go for the gusto!! I really wanted us to go on a trip to Carolina Beach,North Carolina (a 5 1/2 hour trip via plane on the way there and a 7 hour trip on the way back).  

When Bryan and I were dating he took me to meet his parents, who live in North Carolina.   We all went to the beach together and I have to say it was one of the most fun and relaxing trips I had ever been on.  The NC beaches are amazing!!! I haven't been to too many beaches, mind you, but I've been to the West Coast beaches (Oregon, California and Hawaii) and I've been to a Mediterranean beach (when I went to Spain) and by FAR the beaches in North Carolina were so much more relaxing.  Don't get me wrong the others were beautiful (especially Hawaii)... but  nothing was more enjoyable or relaxing than our trip to Carolina Beach in North Carolina.

I told Bryan that I wanted to go on this trip and I could see the surprise and delight in his eyes (because he isn't boring like me - and I know he'd like to go on all sorts of trips with Luke).  I knew that my suggestion would make him happy because it would give him a chance to see his family AND he also loves the beaches in NC.   I also invited my family to come along because my family hasn't been to North Carolina and I knew they'd love the beach. But with all of this, it makes for a LOT of unknowns and that is definitely outside of my comfort.   But I tried to organize the trip as best as I could. I created a 23 page itinerary (yes, you read that right - 23 pages!) and created a menu and shopping list, packing list, etc.  I organized the heck out of this thing.   But as you can imagine, we probably only used about 3 pages of our itinerary and our shopping list/packing lists went out the window :)  

All in all we had a great trip! And I'm already looking forward to our next one!  It was SOOO nice to be in North Carolina and share that with my family and to see all of Bryan's family.  In total here there were 18 people on this trip:

Bryan, me and Luke
My Family: Dad, Mom, Charity, Jeff, Jack and Amelia
Bryan's Family:  Dad, Mom, Christine, Jordan, Hailey, Reileigh, Granny, Uncle Tommy and Aunt Jeri

First airplane ride:

Ahhh... This is the life:

From left to right: Uncle Tommy, Granny, Aunt Jeri, Bryan's mom, Luke and me

Luke and Christine:

Luke and me.  Luke doesn't seem to be loving my kisses :) But for some reason I LOVE this picture!!

From left to right: Bryan's dad, mom, Bryan, Luke and me:

From Left to Right: Luke, Bryan, me, my mom, my dad

Getting ready for a night on the town (to see fireworks!)

Luke's absolute favorite things to do on the beach... Shovel sand into a bucket :)