Beached

Guess how much The Great Fundraising Act raised yesterday in a single day?

$26,432

Yeah, you read that right.

If you didn’t believe in the power of social media before, or you were losing faith in kindness and charitable giving, you were wrong.

$23,210 came from winning bids on auction items, and another $3,222 came from straight monetary donations. It’s so impressive it blows me away. I’m so proud to be a part of community that has both the thought and power to do something this amazing.

If you didn’t get a chance to bid, or you didn’t win an item, don’t worry- you haven’t missed your chance! Stayed tuned for “After the Act” details on how to buy items at a set price.

 

Now on to significantly less important things. Like taunting you with beach pictures.

oak island beach nc

Imagine my surprise when the temperature increased about 20 degrees on the drive home. It was actually cooler at the beach than it was in the middle of the state. Thank goodness the ridiculous heat wave hadn’t yet reached the coast, because it was certainly hot enough for me to be hiding in the shade all day, every day.

oak island pier north carolina beach

We stayed right in the middle of two beaches: Oak Island and Caswell Beach. So much in the middle that the beach was zoned as Caswell Beach and the condo was officially in Oak Island. They were a dune and a parking lot apart.

nc beach vacation

Either way it was a quiet, un-crowded beach that was so safe everyone left their awnings and beach chairs out in the sand every night. Let me tell you what a difference it makes to lug all your stuff to the beach day after day when you don’t have to carry a chair or giant tent!

beach sunset

I spent most of my days curled up under the awning with one of my 13 books {shame on me, I only made it through 8} and periodically running into the progressively rougher & rougher waves when I couldn’t stand the heat. Or had to pee. You know.

yaupon pier home of the nc tiger shark record

After the husband talking about going fishing every single day of the trip, we finally made it over to the pier for some night fishing on the last evening of our vacation. Of course we chose to stay by the pier with the NC record for largest tiger shark catch. Oh my.

going fishing

It’s not as easy as it looks to tie hooks to a clear line in the windy darkness, but eventually everything was all set up.

night pier fishing

There was a lot of sitting…and only one fish caught. I really don’t relate to the appeal of fishing for fun…

father daughter hug

As much as I love vacation and the beach, I’m happy to be home. Technology was not my friend on the trip {my family will likely tell you this doesn’t surprise them in the least} so I have lots of catching up to do!

Posts were sparse on the trip, but here’s what you missed:

– Ready to Ride?

– Crab cakes at the Dead End Saloon

– My 7 Links of beautiful, controversial, and surprise posts…aka my rare participation in a meme. If you haven’t done 7 links yet considered yourself tagged in my post because I’m having fun reading them. Smile

 

There’s also some fun things coming up over the next week or so:

– An insanely delicious {yet messy} treat. Hint: Lesson learned- don’t attempt to make caramel during the hottest week on record.

– A HUGE bike ride. Please everyone cross your fingers that the forecasted 98 degrees for Friday and Saturday is extremely wrong. I’m thinking 70 sounds good…but I’ll take something in the 80s. Winking smile

– Some fun news that I will now make you wait in suspense for, because that’s really the only way to make it fun.

– Surely I’m forgetting something…

What exciting things do you have going on this week?

Country Weekend Recap

After stopping for lunch at Berry Hill, the gang headed to our friend’s farmhouse in the country.

If you ever told me I’d post something about four wheelers, catching dinner, or anything with camo, I’d have been skeptical. But you have to try something at least once before you judge it, right?

The view of the land was amazing- I knew in an instant it would be a relaxing trip, even if it was super short.

country

As soon as we got there, we changed into fishing gear and headed down to the pond.

mule

You know you’re on a farm when you have to drive to the pond. 😉

country riding

Wiley immediately jumped in the pond- he was ready for a swim. 🙂

dog in pond

The other pups stayed back at the house and had a field day running around the tennis court.

dogs

Our hooks kept getting stuck in the algae instead of catching fish, so we sent two of the boys off on a paddle boat to fish in the middle of the pond. They needed a little help getting started, but Katherine gave them a good push, and they were off!

fishing

You boys better get to fishing- we’re hungry for dinner!

paddle boat

Back on the shore, Katherine caught a fish- way to show up the boys!

caught fish

This is when it started to rain. We just ignored it and got soaking wet. Fast forward a few hours later, and we had dinner!

catching dinner

Chris got to work cleaning the fish while I got the rest of dinner ready inside.

cleaning fish

We made fish tacos! I sautéed the fish and added a little taco seasoning, then set out loads of taco toppings, with some Spanish rice on the side. I also made some traditional ground beef tacos in case there wasn’t enough fish (but I didn’t eat any of those.)

mexican dinner

Since dinner was Mexican themed, I celebrated our catch with a margarita on the rocks. It was good, but boy that mix was sweet. It kind of burned my throat, although I suppose that could have been the tequila doing the burning….

margarita

After dinner Katherine and I went on a picture-taking extravaganza. It was just so beautiful- I loved being surrounded by nothing but nature. Being away from everything makes you realize how much “noise” you’re surrounded by in a city- even in a neighborhood there’s always background noise- cars, planes, people yelling, lawn mowers…. Here it was just quiet, except for the occasional barking dog and the croaking bull frogs. 🙂 Here are some of my pictures from the weekend.

pictures

Remember the puppy we found on the side of the road?  We left her at the house with some food, water, and blankets, but she found us down at the pond fishing and decided to take a nap in the rain.

sleeping puppy

And then laid down under the table as we ate dinner. Think we found a new friend? 🙂

puppy

I have a feeling if no one claims her David & Ashley might have a new pet. Since she was hanging out with us we had to give her a name. So meet Sassy 🙂 [As in sweet sassy molassey, we found a dog!]

After dinner the husband took me on a ride on the four wheeler- it was my first time on a four wheeler and it was awesome!! I loved how fast we could zip through the woods- I’m glad I wasn’t driving though. 😉 We came back covered head to toe in mud. It was awesome.

four wheeling

The husband and his friends come up here all the time for “boys weekends”, and I’m never jealous that he gets to go and I don’t….but next time I might be. 😉