Pepper Update

 Pepper has been feeling like the luckiest dog alive for the last few months, that’s for sure!

Every day Mark goes out and plays with her. When school was going on and off online, he would take breaks by reading with Pepper outside. 

We take her on our family walks a lot of the time and she loves just being with us. 

And she has been therapeutic for everyone, that’s for sure. 

Sometimes I wish she were a trained dog to live inside, but then I see all the hair she brings in when it’s shedding time and I think, “Forget it!”. She definitely loves that she gets to sleep inside in her cozy crate, but also loves the freedom to explore the backyard all she wants. 

She is around 4.5-5 years old now and yes, we are happy to have her (although it was a huge surprise for the whole family that we got her).

Lyana. 

Kure Beach

Going to the beach with friends is always so much fun!!! We had planned to go to the beach with the Whites a couple of weeks beforehand, but when we woke up on that Saturday, the weather forecast looked MISERABLE with almost 100% chance of rain at our favorite beach Topsail. We were debating on whether or not we should go and were texting and calling back and forth while getting ready. After much deliberation and checking different forecasts and radars, we decided to risk it and go to Kure beach, a beach that is closer to Wilmington as it was showing a lesser chance of thunderstorms in that area.

We usually get to the beach around 10:30. Because we knew we might have a shorter beach day, we quickly got in the ocean and used every sun ray. 

Mark did a lot of digging with all those stormy clouds in the background

Oh yes, and we brought Sophie with us. She and Katya had me take at least a thousand pictures.

As afternoon was approaching, the weather north of us looked crazy! But we still had sunshine and not a drop of rain. 

One of that thousand of pictures. 

Mark and his sand.

Proof that Alex and Robert are the same hight.

Here is our awesome family+Sophie picture.

And here are the Whites and the Watsons! Lots of blondies over there on the right. 

We ended up being extremely fortunate and spending the whole day on the beach! 

Here are Kyla, Katya and Sophie! 

Around 6pm we headed to a tiny burger hut for some dinner. We got our order with no problem but the Whites had to wait for half an hour and then it was given to the wrong person or something. Anyway, after all the mishaps, they got their dinner free and we just headed home. 😆

Summer beach day trips are the best! 

 

Summer 2020

This summer of 2020 was unlike any other. In fact it feels like it had started in March because the kids were home for so many months. We love summers in North Carolina! I love the heat and the sunshine and the beautiful flowers that bloom by our house (gardenias bloom twice for me!). But here is a quick recap mostly in regards to the kids, although it’s worth mentioning that Robert is doing great with his private office and is enjoying owning a dental clinic. 

Alex probably had one of the most eventful summers as he learned how to drive! They had to do behind the wheel lessons wearing masks and the theory lessons virtually. We hired a private company to do all of that as we knew that the school was going to be months behind on fitting him in. 

And then he passed the written test and got a permit! Robert is the main adult driving with him because he still makes me nervous;). Only once though he jumped the curb and rode on the grass for 30 feet or so.

 

Oh yes! And Alex got his first OFFICIAL job! He was not even 15 when he got hired by Chick-Fil-A. They receive so many applications (they said they hire one out 25 that apply) and they picked Alex! He loves working there although it’s a minimum wage pay till he is 16. It’s been good for him to be social and also learn how to work outside of home. 

He still does chores at home, of course. But on the side, he tries to go perform in Downtown Apex when he can. He loves it, but has been kind of tired after working till 7 pm at CFA. He makes around $40-80 PER HOUR when he goes busking, which is incredible!

Oh yes, Alex also got to participate in a rowing camp in July. He still loves rowing, thus he signed up for rowing for another season in the fall with Jordan Lake Crew. 

This post is not just about Alex, I promise.

The following pictures probably fits better with Mark’s tennis post, but here it is! One of the highlights of Mark’s summer--winning 96 Dunlop tennis balls. This is three out of four boxes that arrived on our porch one day. 

This year our neighborhood pool did open but we had a very strict cleaning routine (families took turns volunteering cleaning it) and we had to sign up in advance to visit the pool. 

Our gorgeous kids.

Robert covered his corn hole boards with Bass and Watson sticker. Somehow that diminished the kids’ desire to play corn hole😂😂😂.

Oh yes! And for the 4th of July, we got together with friends to play baseball at Kelly Road Park. Our kids turned out to be pretty good actually!!!

We were trying to avoid big crowds....of course, having many kids kind of makes it difficult. 

And then we celebrated 4th of July on our own at home...probably first time ever. 

We made good food and enjoyed each other’s company.

Apple pie from scratch???

Alex, the master of watermelon cutting! He gets lots of practice of cutting watermelon and pineapples in our house.

Oh, and of course, how can we forget Katya’s awesome gig this summer???  Katya got to work at Robert’s office as an aid/receptionist/COVID scanner/helper of what’s needed. She loved this job and people really enjoyed working with her.

 She looks particularly excited in this picture 😂😂😂

So this post showed me that I am not taking enough pictures of me and Robert and also that Mark doesn’t have lots of non-tennis pictures. 

We are so grateful for our extended family time this summer and know it has definitely changed our family dynamics. The big kids spent a lot of hours with us rather than hanging out with a bunch of friends. We know they wish things were different, and so do we, but we are accepting these (TEMPORARY) changes in life. Things will work out. 

Summer Mountain Getaway

Sometimes in the middle of our hot summer months, we decided we need a few chill days in the mountains--chill because it was going to be cooler and chill because we simply wanted to relax. Therefore, we rented a quirky cabin near Murphy, NC, far from it all. To get there you had to drive for about 5.5 hours and then take a dirt road for about a mile, but the closest town was 10 min away. 

The cabin was wooden and rustic--with a lot of character which we like. 

It had an awesome basement with a ping pong table and a dart board (where we had many family tournaments). 

We had many adventures planned for this trip, focusing on anything that didn’t require wearing a mask. On our first day after we arrived, we drove 30 min to the Nantahala Lake (we all are still trying to pronounce it). It’s a lake situated higher in the mountains, so it’s a pretty cold lake even in August.

We rented three kayaks--two doubles and one kid kind because that’s all they had available. And that’s when we learned that Mark is actually NOT a kid any more. 

We were on the lake for a few hours and the kids tried all sorts of combinations of who is on what kayak trying to make it more pleasant and efficient. 

We have awesome little kayakers/rowers/athletes in the family but even then I was still worried about our safety on this lake with not many places to “dock”😆!

We found an island with a swing rope and that’s where we rested and had a snack (and obviously jumped into the lake...just not me).

We had lunch at the Lakes End cafe... and here is the sad reality nowadays of waiting for lunch and occupying our time with phones.

After lunch we drove to another lake. It was supposed to be a pretty lake closer to our house with a nice place to swim, but it was kind of muddy from all the clay and actually busy. We didn’t spend much time there.

The following day we ventured out on a hike. We started at the Nantahala Outdoor Center and got onto the Appalachian Trail. We hiked about 2 miles out and 2 miles back. It was a significant milestone for me because just 5 weeks prior, I had torn my ACL in the right knee. I wasn’t sure I would do ok, but I did great! It gave me a lot of confidence and gratefulness for sure!

We got caught in a downpour just a few minutes before we reached our car. Here, we were trying to wait out the worst of the rain under a rocky curtain, but finally decided to just walk fast and endure the rain as it was warm.

From there, we drove to the Fontana Dam. 

The whole time as we were driving there, I was telling the kids that it was the famous dam from which Harrison Ford jumped off in the movie “The Fugitive”. 

Only later I realized that he actually jumped off a bit further down the river/lake at Cheoah Dam! Oh well! 

The calm side of the dam.

And Mark sitting on TOP of the dam. 

In the evening, we had a ton of fun roasting marsh mellows and goofing around. 

Scary light and shiny faces, but who cares! At least I am still pickup-able. 😂

Grateful to always have him by my side. I miss exploring new places together. Also notice, Alex is probably trying to get something from Mark in the background;).

On the final day of our adventures, we drove all the way to South Carolina, funnily, VIA Georgia! How crazy is that? It was an 1 hr 20 min drive, early in the morning, over the mountains, in the fog. Fun stuff.

We used NOC Chatooga Outpost as our company:

Unfortunately, I still wasn’t so sure my knee should take a beating in the wild water raft, so I stayed behind and had the best time having a solo lunch and reading a book.

But these favorite people of mine had the best time on the river! It was exhilarating and fast and super fun!

 

That’s just one of the pictures of them jumping into the raging waters...for fun (?).

Soaked but super happy they survived all the crazy rapids. I think they had class III-IV rapids on this trip.

We had a wonderful time in this part of the country! It’s amazing that although we were still in North Carolina, that it was five hours away. North Carolina is a wide state! I hope we get to explore more of the mountains and lakes next summer again!