Topsail

To celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary, my parents rented a house at Topsail Island.

Then they went ahead and ruined their perfect relaxing getaway by inviting all their kids.

Throughout the two weeks, there was my parents, Matt and I, Bo, my sister and her husband, my sister’s friend, my brother, and my in-laws. And Buddy. Never all at the same time, but basically there were a lot of people on this beach trip. Fortunately it was great weather (making up for our April trip) and we were able to spend most days out on the beach, getting sand in our piggie toes or logging in a few miles on the golf course. There were a few days of really heavy, crazy rain storms but they provided a respite from the sun and a chance to curl up in the window seat and catch up on a trashy US Weekly (left behind by former tenants, possibly from 2-3 years ago, don’t even know, read them anyways) with a glass of wine while my baby scooted around on the floor dumping every single toy out and his 4 grandparents sit around applauding his every move. That’s my kind of vacation, ya’ll.

We’ve been pretty loyal to Surfside Beach, SC and Garden City Beach, SC for years. My mom has been going since she was a teenager, then my parents as soon as they started dating, and our family has only missed one year. SC beaches have a special place in my nostalgic little heart, but I have to say we loved our first Topsail experience. (Less traffic, less commercialization and you don’t have to drive down a road full of mini golf and firework stores to get there.)  I would say this was Bo’s first official beach trip (since we didn’t get out much in April) but he was smitten. He loved every day sitting on the towel, scooping up sand, smacking together seashells and sitting at the water’s edge with water lapping up on him. One day we were sitting down at the water’s edge and I brought him back up to my mom on the towel and ran down to the water to wash myself off. I returned back to a hollering child…. the message was loud and clear: “Don’t go back in the water without taking me with you, momma!!” I’m a beach bum through and through, so I’m happy to see my little guy is just as thrilled with sand, sun and SPF 70.

And now the photo dump…

The Beach

Another year, another Claffey family beach trip! There were, however, quite a few changes from last year. For starters, instead of showing off a small baby belly, I was showing off a (not so small) baby. Easter was also much earlier this year, and the weather gods were not so kind to us. We had one day we were able to sit on the beach, but the rest were a little chilly and windy. We had a smaller crew than usual this year. In the past, we've had as many as 19 family members on one trip. For most of this week, it was just my parents, my sister and Bo and I. My 2 aunts and their daughters were there for the weekend but their spring breaks didn't coincide, and they headed back on Monday.

We were indoors most of the week but it still felt like a vacation. With lots of extra eyes and hands around for Bo, I took advantage by sleeping in, taking a few naps and tackling a huge project: organizing a mere decade's worth of digital photos on my external hard drive. You know, one of those projects that always gets pushed aside for the tasks of daily living… or never gets tackled because it is just too darn overwhelming. (I managed to get through 2003-2011… now the trick is making myself finish the last 1.5 years back home.)

It was a quiet and relaxing week, a nice little escape from the day to day. I ended up heading back a day early due to near-hurricane like conditions on the forecast and a Daddy who was missing his little boy. Our drive home was an eventful cap to a low key week (pouring rain! crying baby! barking dog!) but we made it safe and sound and it didn't counteract the relaxing effects of the week too much.

Bo's First Easter

My family has gone to the beach for Easter my whole life. When I was little, I worried the Easter bunny would get confused that we weren't at our "official" address and was always relieved to wake up and find that he had managed to track us down at the beach.

Luckily, he got the memo that Bo was at the beach this year too. (I am not sure Bo will be delighted with these pictures in years to come, but I think he is downright edible.)

Shrimp Boil

I saw a photo spread of a shrimp boil (or “low country boil” as they are often called) in a Martha Stewart Living magazine years ago and, since this was before the days of Pinterest, had carefully torn it out and saved it and sworn one day I was going to do it.

So when we were meal planning for the beach trip and Anne said “Let’s do a shrimp boil!” I said “IN!!!” What better place to do it then where fresh shrimp is abundant!

Fortunately for us, Locke’s family had done them before so we decided he was going to be the head chef and then we loosely consulted another expert on all-things-Southern-cooking to refresh ourselves on the timing and order of ingredients into the pot. (I’ve always sworn I’d never use a Paula Deen recipe, but there’s an exception to every rule!)

It ended up being the yummiest, easiest, crowd-pleasing meal ever. The crab boil, listed in the Paula Deen recipe, was easy enough to find at the grocery store – it was a pack of herbs & spices basically in kind of little mesh bag like a tea bag that floated in the boiling water to flavor everything and then was easily scooped out. And then of course, we had Old Bay to put on the table to liberally shake on to everything. Using Old Bay always takes me back to Baltimore and makes me feel a teensy bit nostalgic!

Technically, if you’re going to do this authentically, you’re supposed to dump everything out on to newspapers on a table and just dig in – but since the table at our rental house looked like maybe it wouldn’t appreciate a couple pounds of steaming shrimp, corn and sausage poured on to it, we opted for bowls.  And then we indeed dug in!

Easiest recipe ever. Make it, eat it, share with happy guests.

Emerald Isle

The culmination of the back-to-back-to-back-to-back weekends of travel was a much, much anticipated 5-day beach trip to Emerald Isle. It was one of those trips we've talked about nearly all of residency - "we should rent a house at the beach for the end of residency!" and I'm equal parts thrilled we followed through and amazed that we're at the end of residency point already.

I've grown up going to South Carolina beaches - specifically Garden City & Surfside - but I have always wanted to explore the varying and interesting coast of NC so I was excited that we picked the new-to-me spot of Emerald Isle. Locke found us a great house that was 2nd row to the beach with a pool in the backyard and we quickly made it a home by dumping sunglasses on every counter, beach towels over stairways, sun-tanned lotion magazines on side tables and stocking the fridge full of beer, snacks and fishing bait.

It was a wonderful get-away with good friends, Zac & Jamie, Anne & Locke and Mike. After looking at a weather forecast with potential rain all week, we lucked out with never a drop and sunny warm days in the high 70s. There were some threatening clouds that cropped up from time to time, but they moved on and the sun shone all week. We fell into an easy routine of breakfast and coffee on the porch, wandering down to the pool for basking, reading or hanging out in the water, a quick bite to eat for lunch and then wandering over to the beach for the afternoon. The boys amused themselves with bocce ball or guarding fishing lines. It goes without saying that most girls don't need amusement at a beach - there's total satisfaction from toes in the sand, a few magazines and maybe even a nap. Or even better, watching cute Zoey experience the surf lapping up on her sandy legs or trying to figure out how to distract her Momma so she could find out if sand was as tasty as it looked like it could be.

We had two delicious meals out at local restaurants that were picked out by Mike who frequents this beach every other weekend (insert snide jealous comment) and then we cooked two meals in.  Our final night, we had a shrimp boil - something I have always wanted to do and which turned out to be very easy and a huge crowd pleaser. Adding to the "keep" list for future recipes and potential tailgate or other large crowd meals.

Between the surprisingly great weather, the excellent company and the adorable and entertaining Miss Z I don't think we could have had a better week. The only improvement on the vacation would have been to double the time we were there. Sunday morning arrived way, way too quickly and soon we were saying goodbye to our little island house and headed back to reality.

The Beach

Oh how I love the beach.  I love any beach, any time of year but I especially love my family’s annual April beach trip to Garden City Beach, SC.  Last year, Matt and I were able to join our family for the whole week at the beach but this year because of work schedules we had to make the most of our too-short 3.5 days there!  We managed to fit it all in…

Saturday night we celebrated my mom’s upcoming retirement from her career as a elementary school teacher with champagne and cupcakes!  The cupcakes were made by my super talented friend Abbie (the same one who made Matt’s birthday cake a few months ago.)  Not only are they adorable, but they taste so good. 

Congrats Mom!!  My mom keeps telling everyone she got accepted for a new job position she applied for five years ago – Grandma.  (I appreciate the gentle reminder we’ve kept her waiting a whole five years and like to tell my sister that that means now she’s married the clock is ON.) 

We had GORGEOUS weather this week.  April can be hit or miss weather at the beach – but that will never stop a bunch of Yankees from spreading their towels out and claiming the sun.  It makes me laugh to look up and down the beach and see the scores of people splashing in the freezing ocean – you can tell immediately who has traveled down from NY, NJ and Ontario for their spring breaks.

Fortunately we didn’t have to wear our Yankees tough skin on the beach this week {since I don’t have mine anymore} – each day was warmer then the next and we got plenty of time in the sun.  Even Buddy was totally content curled up on a blanket under an umbrella.

Speaking of Buddy, one of the “perks” of bringing your dog to the beach is getting to wake up at sunrise every day to take him out!  He usually gets up around 6:30 or so to go out, and at home I just let him out the back door and if it’s not time for me to get up, we head back to bed.  But here the back door was a wooden staircases that led straight to a wide open beach, so I thought it in my best interest to actually put the leash on and walk him.  It turned out to be one of my favorite moments of each day.  There is nothing so beautiful as the sun coming up on an almost-empty beach.  One morning we were out just as it was literally coming up over the water, and we plopped down in the sand to watch the sun climb higher and higher in the sky from dawn to full morning daylight. 

I am okay with this version of 6:30.  Sure beats an alarm clock and fumbling to the kitchen to mash the Keurig button.

Ok, so maybe you still need the mash the Keurig button.

We also, of course, had our favorite Claffey family beach tradition – buttery rubber bands! 

Katie and Drew posed for this picture while we were waiting for our last rounds of clams to come up and I’m pretty sure it looks like it belongs in a church directory.  Awkward is their specialty.

It was a condensed version of our usual beach trip, but expert beach goers that we are, we managed in everything that makes a Claffey beach trip great: surf, sand, hot dogs, clams, golf, walks, family time, beer.  Ok ix-nay on that last one for me…. maybe next year.  I don’t think Baby C would take too kindly to that! 

See you next year, beach!