Three Peerys in a Pod: Family Reunion

Last week was the week-o-reunions! We attended the NICU Reunion on Tuesday, then this past weekend we went to a family reunion at the beach. MaSha and her cousins decided to get together for a weekend in North Myrtle Beach. MaSha rented us a 3 bedroom condo and we met up with Tara, Matt, Leece, Aunt Lorraine, and MaSha's cousins, Majorie and Duane and Bob and Nancy.

Thomas and I took off on Thursday night and went first to Charleston to stay at Matt and Tara's. On Friday morning we got up and headed out to Folly Beach to see Fifi, Jerry and Mag and Dave, who just happened to be staying there for the week. We all went for a walk on the beach and also had lunch at Rita's with them. This was one of the first times we've been at a restaurant with the boys. They behaved very well! We held them the whole time, taking turns and passing them around, and fed them off of our plates. We used the straws to give them little sips of water.

Thomas and William

Mag and Stokes

Fifi, Stokes, me and William

William and his mama

Thomas and Ryan

I loved the décor at Rita's!

Dave, Mag and Ryan

Jerry and Stokes

After lunch, we packed it back up and headed north on 17. A few hours later, we got to our condo. It was a huge resort and poor Thomas...that sweet man made probably at least 7 trips from one end of the resort where our car was parked, to the other end where our condo was located to unload all of our gear. By the time we got there, we were about 1.5 hours late on the afternoon bottle and the boys were starting to get cranked up so I had to immediately start feeding them a bottle. This meant that Thomas was on his own to unload the van. And of course, there were no luggage carts in sight. The amount of STUFF we took for a weekend away was ridiculous. But really, if we had gone for an entire week, it would have been a negligible difference in the amount of stuff. Maybe a few extra onesies or t-shirts. Throughout the rest of the evening, MaSha, Tara, Matt, Leece and Aunt Lorraine got there. At one point, we took the boys and went with MaSha to Marjorie and Duane's room to meet up with them and Bob and Nancy to have some pizza. If you read this blog fairly often, you probably know that I am a little (and when I say little, I mean VERY) strict about their schedule. We were way off pretty much all day on Friday and we didn't end up putting the boys down to sleep until 9 or 9:30 pm. WHAT?!?! It was totally fine and helped me to see that I (and the boys) can be somewhat flexible....every now and then!

Stokes checking out the condo and the view

Saturday did not do much for us in terms of weather. Of course when you're at the beach, you want sunny, clear skies and a nice breeze so you can enjoy the surf and sun. We didn't get that. We got wind, clouds and a chilly temp. It was a little too chilly to have a real beach day. Despite our disappointment, we made the best of it!

Leece and Stokes at the window

We went for a walk in the morning.

Tara, Thomas and strollers

Thomas, Bob and strollers

Stokes and Marjorie

Thomas and Ryan

Bob, Leece, Thomas and Ryan

Marjorie and Stokes

Tara and Leece

Thomas and William

William

Thomas and William

MaSha and Ryan

Marjorie and Stokes

Tara, Leece, Stokes and Marjorie

Sweet baby foot in the water

Stokes

William (wearing his Da-da's hat)

William and Thomas

Marjorie, Stokes, MaSha and Ryan

Ryan

Later in the afternoon, we took all the kids to the indoor pool

Then we took them to one of the heated outdoor pools!

Tara and Leece

Stokes and Uncle Matt

Matt's parents, Rick and Debbie, came by to visit us for a little while on Saturday afternoon. We haven't seen them in a long time and loved getting to catch up!

Rick and Bob

Debbie and MaSha

The group in the outdoor pool

On Saturday night, we had everyone over to our condo for dinner. We hung out and later on watched the Clemson/FSU game...UGHHHH. That is another story for another blog post! We did, however, put the boys in the Clemson t-shirts...over their pjs! Note - it wasn't lucky. We will try a different gameday look next time.

Thomas and Ryan

MaSha with Stokes and Nancy with William

Nancy, MaSha, William and me

The most beautiful rainbow popped up on Saturday evening. It was actually a double rainbow! Can you faintly see the other one to the right?

Rainbows at the beach make for great photo ops!

William and me

Thomas, William and me

Kissy, kissy!
*I should say that William is the only one in these pictures because
we had just put Stokes and Ryan to bed and were about to put William
down when we saw the rainbow and took the opportunity to take pics!

Beautiful sunset

Tara and Matt with the rainbow

Sunday morning, we had a big breakfast that Aunt Lorraine cooked for everyone! It was delicious. We spent the morning packing up, eating, visiting with the family and wrapping up the weekend. What an enjoyable reunion with the Plaxico side of the family. I really enjoyed it because I got the opportunity to get to know MaSha's cousins. They were so genuine and sweet. Marjorie made my weekend at the very end when she told me that even Southern babies have nice manners and that the boys and Leece were very well behaved. I mean, of course I think they're just perfect, but I am just slightly biased! Marjorie is family, so she's biased too, but it was still so nice to hear!!! :)

You will notice in the next picture that the irony of ironies happened - Sunday, as we were leaving, the sun was shining as bright as could be and it was nice and warm. It would have been the perfect day on the beach LOL.