Beach Week 2018 - Part 2

Tuesday

Tuesday started off great, with a girls morning out! As a belated Mother's Day gift, Nanny treated all 3 of her girls to brunch and pedis. So fun! The men stayed at home with the kids and all were alive when we got back, so it was a win-win.

We hit the beach after lunch and unfortunately it was a bit windy, which made for some huge waves and difficulty boogie boarding. At least the kids had fun in the sand!

 Greg went on a walk with the kids and found these awesome sand sculptures!

 Greg and I were in charge of dinner that night, and we cooked up a Mexican fiesta! Steak fajitas, chicken tacos, and beef tacos. And John contributed by fixing his famous "Panty Dropper" margaritas. Let's just say....they were STRONG. It was a fun night but I don't remember all of it if I'm being truthful! :)

I have no idea what we were laughing at here. Other than the fact that Mom said she wasn't affected by the margs at all :) Um, lie!

Wednesday

Another great beach day! This was the first year Abby felt comfortable going out in the water without an adult. She loved boogie boarding for hours on end with her big bro!

 Apparently pool floats are more fun inside the house :)

 This guy thoroughly enjoyed his pooltime while kiddos were napping!

 Someone is obsessed with his cousin Abby! :) #monkeyseemonkeydo

Thursday

Once again, the morning started off with claiming seats on the golf cart. This game got old REAL fast :)

 Nate & Greg both volunteered to be buried in the sand!

 The waves were a bit rough on the ocean again, so we had a bit of pool time before lunch. (Have I mentioned how nice it was to have our own pool?! It's a requirement for all of our future beach houses now! #spoiled)

 We decided to take advantage of our last sunny afternoon/evening, and headed out to the pier at Murrell's Inlet right after naptime. In matching cousin outfits of course!

 Abby built this "fort" in she & Nate's bedroom and I'll give you one guess as to who liked to play in there the most!? A certain little 3 year old boy :) #besties

 After dinner, we took the golf cart off-roading and went to our favorite ice cream store. Every single grandchild has had their first bite of ice cream there!!! So it was time for Otis and CK to be initiated. As to be expected, CK loved it. Otis, not so much! He is a super healthy eater and did not understand the taste of sugar. Ha!

 Bec and I took the 4 "big" kids down on the beach after the ice cream store. It was so fun watching them run around and eventually take a dip in the ocean, fully-clothed! #memories

Gibson had the time of his life in his underwear :)

Friday

Our last day at the beach turned out to be a total bust. It was such a bummer! It literally monsooned almost all day. We made the most of it though....we played games, had a ping-pong tournament, did some coloring, puzzles, and got a head-start on packing.

I taught Abby a game from my childhood, M*A*S*H, and she was hooked!

Otis went for a golf cart ride when there was a break in the rain.

And promptly fell asleep :)

 Abby and I made brackets for a ping-pong tournament for the whole house! She decided not to play, but to be the scorekeeper and referee instead. She took her duties *very* seriously!

 The championship game: Greg vs. Nate. And the winner was......Greg! (By a hair)

Nothing better than curling up with a book in a cozy nook on a rainy day

3 generations playing Rummikub! One of my favorite games as a kid!

Again with the matching! Abby was such a little momma during this trip and it was fun to watch. Oh how she adores her little cousins!!

We all packed up and headed out Saturday morning.....

Nate & Abby headed to Camp Nanny & Poppy in NC so it was finally time for my real vacation to begin!

Beach Week 2018 - Part 1

*Oops, I fell off the blogging wagon this summer!!*

I will try to summarize our beach trip as briefly as possible. But once again, we had a fabulous time with the crazy Gibbs clan!!

The 4 of us started the 2-day road trip on Friday, July 13th. We spent the night in Columbia, SC and then woke up Saturday morning with just a few hours left to drive. We met at Chick-fil-a for lunch, and then headed to the Berly's house to change into bathing suits & head to the beach!

With big cousin, Anna!

First day on the beach is such a special one!

Nate dug this hole himself!!

Finally, around 4 pm, we were allowed to check into our beach house for the week! We *upgraded* this year and the kids were so excited to stay in the "mansion!" Bec and I got us checked in, and unpacked all of the groceries once they were delivered. The kids had beach time and then pool time with the dads, so it was a full afternoon!

Sunday

Bec and I got up early Sunday for a sunrise beach walk!

 One great thing about our beach house this year was that it had 6 bedrooms & bathrooms! So, we were able to spread out and everyone could sleep comfortably. Somehow, Abby ended up sneaking in Gibson & Anderson's room Sunday morning to watch some cartoons before breakfast :)

 Ready to boogie board! Poppy brought these and they were a *HUGE* hit with all the kids!

Abby was so excited to be twinsies with Charlie Kate!

Sweet Otis is such a fish. He loved being in the ocean, jumping waves, and just sitting in the sand observing everyone.

CK's bear crawl!

Sister time with adult beverages!

 After lunch most days, the adults hung out at the pool while the kiddos napped. Best part of the day! :)

The Berlys came over for a cookout Sunday night. This was their first time meeting Charlie Kate! Uncle Bill wasted no time having an eating contest with her :)

 Celebrating all of our July/August birthdays!

Monday
Last year, our family activity was making tie dye shirts. This year, we decided to try something different and had the "Family Olympics!"

The Red Team was the Statons….

#bestdressedaward

The Green Team was the Gibbs & the Whites

#cutestmascot

The Blue Team was the Glorious Givens / Blue Bears
(yes we were so awesome we had 2 names!)

#mostcompetitiveteam

We had 6 events, and asked for a representative from each team for the first event, Jump the Creek.

Next was the jump rope contest, where Abby smoked both of her aunts!

Then it was time for the Forward/Backward running relay. Surprisingly, no one fell on their butt while running backwards!

The 4th event was the egg balancing relay...

 The 5th event was the 3-legged race and probably the most hysterical thing I have ever witnessed. Gibson was dead set on doing this event with his dad, and so as you can see, Mike literally laid him on his leg and carried him the whole event. All you could hear was Gibson saying "ow, ow, ow, ow!" It was hysterical. It was so funny that we did a second round, where Bec joined Mike and the green team switched up their members as well. It didn't help.....the Blue Team took home the gold both rounds!!!

 Someone had a bit of a fit when he was told he couldn't do the 3-legged race.....#timeout

 The last event was the water balloon toss. This was the *only* event the blue team lost! Uncle Mike sealed the win in the last round against Nate.

 The kids & I decided we wanted Poppy to get soaked at the end of the Olympics, so we had a cooler of water dumped on him!!!

 It was a fun-filled, crazy morning.....just par for the course with my family :) I think the Olympics were a huge hit, and the kids are already making plan for new/harder events next year.

We hit the beach later that morning and had perfect weather, as usual...

 Since the new beach house brought us one block closer to the beach, we thought we could get away with not having a golf cart. Well, we were wrong. We got one Monday afternoon and the kids were thrilled to go for a joy ride!!!

 Instead of going down on the beach for our usual family pictures, we took advantage of the gorgeous wraparound porch and did pictures there Monday night before dinner.

Nanny & Poppy with ALL of their grandkids! Such a special picture!

The whole gang :)

My two favorite kiddos

 After dinner, we had a chill evening for the most part....

….until the little kids went to bed. Then Nate & Abby decided they wanted to play "Party Quirks" with all of the adults. (It was an improv game she learned at Theater Camp.) Let's just say I have a video of Nanny pretending to be a sloth, but it's not great quality because I was shaking/laughing so hard. And 2 family members - who shall not be named - actually peed in their pants.

Fun night!!!

*Stay tuned for Part 2*