Summer Trip - First stop: Southport

While we were gone over the 4th of July weekend, our summer trip was really much longer - 2 and a half weeks, actually. We started off at my Dad's house in Southport because we wanted to be there for the 4th of July. We got there on Wednesday the 2nd and were busy the whole time. Thursday, we headed up the coast a ways to my brother's house for the day. His neighborhood was having a party with fireworks and a band. Who could resist! The girls enjoyed listening to and dancing with the band and watching the fireworks with their daddy. It got REALLY dark out in that field! It was hard to keep up with everyone. There were lots of people there that I knew, though, and it was fun to see everyone again.










We also celebrated my birthday with a little cake before all of the activity. Fun, fun!


We spend Friday in the little town of Southport and then on Saturday, we just hung out at my Dad's house. My brother and sister in law came for dinner. It was really nice to spend so much time with my family. My Dad and I got to take a little trip to Walmart before dinner in search of some Benedryl for the puppy. We ran into 2 different people that he knew so our trip ended up being really long and we were late for dinner! Whoops! One of the women we ran into worked there and was in the middle of a nasty divorce. Even thought she hadn't seen my Dad in years and she certainly didn't know me from Adam, she spent her entire dinner break telling us all the details of the last few months of her life including her husbands infidelity, her hatred for the woman he was sleeping with (including adjectives that included my least favorite word of all time) and her suicide attempt. But she's better now. I'm glad to hear it 'cause we've still got peanutbutter on the shopping list and we've gotta run! Nice to meet you, good luck with the new found mental health and all!

So, Daddy and I ended up back at the house in the middle of dinner. Rachel and Rena both managed to break crystal wine glasses, so I spent a good deal of my dinnertime cleaning up shards of glass.

It's really no secret the my father's wife doesn't really like me. It's a long story and one I won't blog about until after her death. But, this trip, she was really nice to me. We had some nice conversations and we actually kinda got along. It's too bad it hasn't been like this since the beginning. And the irony is this is probably the worst time we've given her. Our 75 lb. puppy threw up on her carpet twice, she also ate a flock of flamingos, my girls broke the 2 crystal wine glasses and later in the week Nixie (the puppy) chased her dog down like it was a rabbit and she was a greyhound. Her dog didn't get hurt. Nixie was having fun. But poor Denzel was petrified. I felt so bad.

Sunday we headed up the coast again. Next stop: Granmom and Grandpop's in Southern Shores.