2025-2026 First Day of School

10th, 8th, 5th and 4th this year!

 

Annual Cupcake Challenge

 

Another summer highlight is the Annual Cupcake Challenge with our neighborhood kids in Surf City. This year 10 kids participated. There is a panel of judges - adult neighbors. Judging categories include creativity, presentation, taste.

The 10 contestants with their cupcakes.

Wren made a strawberry jello cake base with fresh whipped cream and a halved strawberry on top.

Benny made red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.

Ella made mocha cupcakes with coffee buttercream frosting. She got 3rd place!

Lily made chocolate cupcakes with cookie dough filling and topped them with peanut butter icing. Lily won first place and gets to keep the trophy until next summer.

17 years

Today, Jake & I celebrated 17 years of marriage. Wow, what a gift! We got up early and snuck away for a coffee date at Sundial. We had a fun day as a family at the beach and then had a romantic date (ha!) with our neighbors at the Annual Cupcake Challenge. 

**Once the kids were back in school, Jake took the day off on Thursday, August 7. We had an all day date that included lots of eye contact, uninterrupted conversations and lunch at Tower Seven at Wrightsville Beach.

 

Aunt Bekah in NC

Bekah just came for an extended weekend visit. It was a hot one! We hit the beach to cool off and played a lot of games inside.  We always enjoy it when Bekah comes to visit!

Multiple trips to the beach. This week was H O T !

Many rounds of Dutch Blitz were played over the weekend.

The older girls go back from camp one day in to Bekah's visit.

Crystal Pier

Prepping dinner

 

FUGE camp

 

Lily & Ella are back from an incredible week at FUGE camp! Here are some photos from their week.

While the girls were at camp, we had a fun week here at home, with Benny & Wren. Here are a few photo highlights:

Benny did lots of Lego building.

Flip N Fly

We had to clean the beach house a day so we also enjoyed the beach!

Helping Mom cook dinner. Wren's fave is homemade Mac & cheese.

Mom won a 3 day game of Monopoly.

She's driving!

Lily took her permit test on July 9 and passed!

Family Vacation to Surf City

Every year, we block off the week of July 4th for our family vacation in Surf City. This is our favorite week of the year! The slow pace and family time is really wonderful. Also all the friends who come for a beach day + neighbors make it such a fun week. 

I was reminiscing of previous years, as I typed up this post:

July 4th 2022

July 4th 2023

July 4th 2024

Here are this year's highlights in photos:

Jake "caught" a ghost crab.

A sea turtle nest just one access down from us!

Sea turtle tracks

Early Sunday morning Jake & I went for a walk on the beach. We saw the Topsail Turtle Project relocating the nest. The mama laid her nest up under the deck of this house. The Topsail Turtle Project decided to move the nest out from there and up to a better location on the dune, all 130 eggs. We will be watching this nest in 50-60 days - hoping we will see the boil.

Night Swim at the pool

A memorable morning bike ride to Daybreak Donuts & Sunrise Bagels for breakfast. Our neighbor, Maddox, joined us. All 7 of us rode our bikes.

Before we started our trek, Jake made sure all the tires were pumped up. My bike tire wasn't holding air so Jake put a new tube on. I must preface this by saying that our bikes are rather old, rusty and crunchy. The ocean air is hard on metal. All 7 of us made it to our breakfast stop. 

On the way back a few of us rode to the top of the Surf City Bridge. I told Jake that I was concerned that my brakes would not make it. A few times that morning they caught or didn't quite catch until I pedaled around another time. Well, on the way down I coasted and rode the brake. About 1/3 from the bottom of the bridge my breaks were not catching. I tried a couple of times and then decided it was best if I jumped off of the moving bike. It was that or crash on the concrete.  I jumped off successfully, landing on my feet while holding on to the handlebars. This gave me some heart palpitations. So conveniently, at the bottom of the bridge, there was a dumpster and we left the bike there. Biking home Wren rode on the back of Jake's; 7 of us on 6 bikes. Memories were made!

Wren biked with us to the top of the Surf City bridge.

A few other momentous events from the week:

Monday night my phone rang just before 10pm. My friend and neighbor Donna, had just arrived to their home. She stepped off of the bottom step onto a dog bone, rolled her ankle and heard a crack. We made a trip to the ER in Porter's Neck. After a few hours of waiting, the x-ray revealed that she did indeed break the outside bone of her ankle-foot. We made it back to Surf City by 2am.  We did enjoy catching up and no traffic on the roads from 10pm to 2am.

Unfortunately, Lily was having some ear pain midweek. I was sure it was swimmer's ear. I made some homemade drops and gave her Tylenol. She did not get any relief so I took her to a doctor in Surf City on Thursday morning. It was an ear infections - so odd since she had no sore throat, drainage or fever. She is loving the antibiotic and now feeling good!

Until next year, Surf City.

summer days

 

Soaking up the long summer days + family time.

Sunset Slush is served on the beach this year!

All the sunsets

Kids Week at The Bridge Church

Father's Day 2025

Happy Father's Day to one of THE best Dad's ever!

We woke up in Surf City. Jake had lots of thoughtful cards with kid's art as well as some gifts to open. We had homemade cinnamon rolls and fruit for breakfast.  We then enjoyed a few hours out at the beach. The beach house is booked this week so we cleaned it up and headed to Wilmington. We watched Lily's 2 ECVA volleyball games, had dinner at Crofton's Pretzels, followed by a movie night at home. 

The kids & I are so thankful for Jake. He is a wonderful father and leads by example.

 

Lily Anne, F I F T E E N

Happy 15th Birthday to Lily! 

My how the years go by quickly, I remember this day like it was yesterday. 

Today we celebrated Lily! It is so fun as she gets older and loves to create in the kitchen. She made us crepes this morning for her birthday. We did a few errands and shopping before she headed to a graduation party. Later in the afternoon we drove out to Surf City for the weekend. Dinner was at Fancy Sushi followed by an icebox cake for a birthday dessert.

Crepes for her birthday breakfast

Birthday dinner at Fancy Sushi

Icebox Cake created and made by Lily

Lily also invited her group of friends out for a beach day on Saturday. We did not get the weather we had hoped for but the kids made the most of it. It rained off and on ALL day, even stormed. They all played in the rain, mostly volleyball, and had a blast!

10 years at My Employees

Sunday June 15, will mark TEN years that Jake has been working at My Employees. A few times over the years, I have tried to find the post about when he took this job and each time I realize that I never actually did a blog post about this BIG job change. It did make Instagram. In hindsight, no blog post was probably due to being rather busy with little kids and also how quickly the transition was from a WCA teacher to the Art Director at My Employees. So on this ten year anniversary, I am going to write down this story. This blog is our family photo album, but also a way that we REMEMBER how God has directed and provided for our family. This was a major Ebenezar, stone of remembrance, for our family. Many times, while retelling the details of 2015, I have been struck with how 2015 was a crazy year of changes and transitions and experiencing God's faithfulness.

It was a Thursday evening in late May of 2015, just 3 days before Ella's 3rd birthday. The kids were in bed and Jake casually mentioned to me, "what if next year is my last year teaching." I was trying to not have a completely shocked face as I nonchalantly asked, "what do you think you would want to do instead of teaching?" Remember that in July of 2014 we took MAPP to become foster parents. In October of 2014, we decided that I would be staying home full time as we welcomed more kids. We did this as a step of obedience, but it also did not make sense on paper for me to not have a part time job, Jake is on a teacher's salary and our family is welcoming more children. Back to our conversation... Jake said he was interested in video production for a church, graphic design or possibly police work.  We decided we would pray about it; he would have a whole school year to look for options and plan. 

Well that Sunday morning, 3 days later, our friend Teena approached Jake at church. She told Jake that the graphic designer at her workplace was fired on Friday and Jake should apply ASAP. I was serving in the church nursery that morning. When Jake told me this afterwards, I was shocked. We had mentioned this to no one. It had only been 3 days. We hadn't really even had time to pray about it. Jake decided to pursue this. He called the employer, updated his resume, applied for the job, and started the interview process. He had some homework to do - a couple videos to create, to show them what he was capable of. 

The timing of all this can only be explained by God and His sovereignty. This was the only couple of weeks out of the school year that Jake was not under a teaching contract. The WCA school year had just ended. They were in the midst of out-service. When Jake's administrator asked him about signing a contract for the next school year, Jake let him know that he was interviewing for another position and would need another week or so. Also during this 2 week period, we were at a Child Family Team meeting and that day we found out that Serenity was on the way. Benny's birth parents were expecting another child and she was about 12 weeks along.

God's blessing's are not always financial, but this new job was a big financial blessing as we went from a family of 4 to a family of 6 all in 2015. Another blessing was that Jake was home every single night for dinner. Jake previously had a lot of responsibilities with athletics at WCA and this kept him at the gym and field a lot of evenings and some weekends. We were also able to make some other changes for our family, that God had previously stirred in our hearts.

"This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes."  Psalm 118:23

Today, Jake was appreciated for his 10 years.