The Annual Simms Family Beach Trip

We just finished up the yearly beach trip with the Simms family (our adopted family here in SC). For those of you who don't know, the relationship to us is as follows: My husband is Craig. His brother Allan is married to Allison, who is one of the Simms children. Her parents, Johnny and Miriam, are the head of the Simms family. They let us tag along on their family beach trip.

It was an awesome beach trip this year. The weather was great and we had no major injuries, illness, or broken beach tents. It was MUCH better than last year, where just about everything that could go wrong went wrong. The only loss was one tooth (Lauren's). She was visited by the tooth fairy, who obviously has more money than she did when we were little! :) Or maybe it's inflation...

Here is the house where we stayed at Emerald Isle, NC. It has 7 bedrooms, 6 full and 2 half baths, an elevator and lots of other fun stuff. Everyone liked it so much that they decided to reserve it again for next year.

Here are some under water pictures taken with Craig's sweet camera...

Allison and Sydney

Caitlin, Joanna, and Sydney

Lauren


Wesley

Allan throwing Lauren into the air. We have to have one of these pictures every year!

Here is a shot from up on the deck. That is Lauren doing the spread eagle into the pool.

Here are Ethan, Wesley, Brian, and Grant planning their synchronized swimming performance. It was beautiful! Grant looks very enthusiastic about the dance coming up. :)

Here is one of the videos of the synchronized swimming.

Here are Allan, Wesley, and Craig. I don't quite know what to say...those are just the most amazing faces I have ever seen.

Chillin' in the tub. Wesley, Joanna, Allison, and Mary

Joanna boogie boarding. What a babe! Right, Craig?

Craig boogie-ing with his cool mohawk. What a babe! Right, Craig?

Joanna and Allison are professional mermaids. See our beautiful moves? Okay, so we look a little special, but that's how I always end up looking in the ocean pictures. Or...in all pictures.

Turns out we are also Charlie's Angels on the side. Too bad it's blurry, but I still couldn't help including this picture.

Awww, wish we were still there. The water was gorgeous!

Sigh, back in SC. The dogs were happy to see us, though. Steve watched them for us again and none of them died.

Golf Balls... The New Currency

Allan and I have been studying the economy, and come to the conclusion that the current monetary system will soon change. The dollar will no longer be used, and a new currency will be needed. We decided that the new currency will most likely be golf balls. So... we decided to stock up!
I am not too sad about the change. I think a golf ball is much better means of exchange than the dollar bill anyway.

For one thing, if you forget it in your pocket, and run it through the wash it just looks better than it did before it went in. With the dollar bill, you can try and unfold it and see if it is still in one piece, but most likely you are just out of luck.

Also you can't play golf with a dollar bill, unless you are playing on a really cheap course. (by the way if you know of a course that is only a dollar to play, please let me know?) And when ever you play a game of golf, you can walk through the ruff, look in the bushes, or in the water, and you always find extra balls. So even a bad golfer like me can make a living on the golf course. What can I say, good times are just around the corner. That is, if we are correct in believing that the new currency will be golf balls...













That is a lot of balls!!!

Christmas

I don't have any great stories to tell...

But at least I have finally uptated the blog.

The Santa Dogs

Joanna playing with her present.

Here is Jo with her new haircut and new glasses.

I think she looks cute!

More Painting

We painted the office. It was quick and painless. It went from a dark green to a sage.
I think it looks pretty good.


Allan walked in the door from work and decided to have lunch and paint at the same time

I thought I took a before picture, but I guess not?

So I just have the after...

Dirty Dog

Need I say more?

Remodeling the Kitchen

Joanna thought it would be fun to remove the kitchen wallpaper while Al & Ali were in Vegas...

I said YES!! GOOD TIMES!!!

I googled a place to rent a wallpaper steamer and couldn't find one, but Lowe's had one to buy for $50. I showed it to Joanna and said we could pick it up Friday after work or something.

If the project were up to me, that is probably as far as it would have gone. But Joanna grabbed a corner of the wallpaper and ripped of a big chunk.

I thought to myself "I can fix that with a little glue and nobody will notice. " Then she grabbed some more and keep on going... To much for me to glue back so I joined in the fun.






The top layer was easy to peal off, and the steamer took the glue paper off with out much effort.

We didn't want to have all the fun, so we waited for Al & Ali to do the painting.

We also changed out all the gold knobs. I think it looks mucho bettero.

Now all that I think is left to do in there is put in a granite counter top and I think the plan also includes a tile back splash.