And now, for something a little bit lighter :) Let’s do some dreaming about spring break and warmer weather! We’ve never taken an official spring break trip since having kiddos, but when the opportunity arose to head to Florida with the whole Thomas crew, we jumped on it. We’ll be staying in a big house in Watercolor (with the cutest bunk room!), and I can’t wait!
I’ve been to the 30A area once before – almost a decade ago, for a very early Southern Weddings photo shoot – and remember just being absolutely delighted by it. The communities (Seaside, Rosemary Beach, Alys Beach) are picture-perfect in every way, and I think June and her cousins will have the best time (as will their parents and grandparents!).
A drawback to the Seaside area is that there’s no direct airport to fly into – Destin and Pensacola are both small and still an hour or more away from our final destination. So, we’re adding to the adventure and road tripping! Our Florida rental is from Monday through Saturday. On the front end, we’ll spend Saturday and Sunday night in Atlanta. On the way home, we’ll stop overnight in Greenville, SC.
Even for people who love travel planning, this is a lot to plan! So, we’d love your help. Have you been to any of our destinations? Have any recommendations for us? We’d love to hear from you in the comments! :)
For my part, I’m focusing on something hard to define but important. It was born out of our trip to Nashville last spring, which was delightful because we got to visit my sister but also unsettling in some ways. We did our research on restaurants and activities as usual, but fell into two traps that I’m hoping to avoid for this trip.
First, I’d like to go deep instead of wide. In Nashville, it felt like we spent a lot of time driving from location to location to hit all of the spots we wanted to. In Atlanta, it would be easy to do the same, and find ourselves criss-crossing the city checking off “must visits.” Instead, I’d love to just pick a neighborhood, park ourselves there for the day, and leisurely walk from a breakfast spot to a park to an activity to lunch and back to our Airbnb. I’d like to feel more like a local, I guess! This is how our time in Paris felt, and we loved it.
Second, I would like to steer clear of “influencer hot spots,” if you will. I’m not opposed to popular spots, or ones with nice aesthetics, but what I want to avoid is places that look great but don’t actually serve good food (or do whatever it is they’re supposed to do well). We had this unfortunate experience with Five Daughters Bakery in Nashville, which appears to have been designed for Instagram (and is super cute!) but didn’t actually serve good donuts, in my opinion. Has this ever happened to you?
In exchange for your recommendations, I thought I’d pass along a few spring break picks I’ve been eyeing. I might pick up one or two of them, but more likely I’ll use them as inspiration as I’m cruising the aisles of my favorite consignment sale in a few weeks :)
For Em: — Pretty coral and white floral dress — Pleated satin skirt (I have this in the pink and love, love, love it!) — Seriously debating this swim suit for me and this matching number for June… much more than I’d usually spend for her but how many years do I have when she’ll want to match with me? :) — This is also such a fun pattern for a swim suit — Love the style of this suit but not sure which colorway I’d go for – I guess navy and white?) — Tennis dress — Pink pom pom tunic (Boden’s tunics are the absolute best!) – or in a tee if that’s more your style — Contrast piping t-shirt dress (I like the red/blue colorway) — Chambray midi skirt
Thanks in advance for your insight, friends! Come back tomorrow for something fun :)
Here we are at the end of another year — another decade! As always, there have been ups and downs in 2019, moments I wish I could live in forever and things I’m more than eager to leave behind. When you have children, the span of a year brings such dramatic change (see: little bald Shep just sitting up to the big boy we have now!). I find it necessary to pause periodically and soak it in, and so here we are.
These posts are such a treat for me to write, and always some of my favorites to look back on years later. I hope you enjoy this year’s recounting: some of our favorite moments of 2019, in our lives and on the blog.
March is one of my favorite months in North Carolina, not because it’s the warmest but because its warmth is still unexpected after the early spring drudgery of my New England upbringing. We celebrated with a downtown Raleigh scoot (one of my favorite memories of the year) and I shared two posts that get a lot of play in our home: board games for two and our favorite way to print Instagram photos. June also tried soccer for the first time, at a field we can walk to!
There were many slow months on the blog this year, and April was one of them, but it still held a few of my favorites from 2019: tips for finding the right daycare, our experience with a neighborhood meal swap, and the tales of 10 of my favorite purchases. It was a joy to celebrate Easter as a family (and we got to show June faith in action in a very tangible way, too!), we scooted west for a zoo trip with cousins, and June had her first itty bitty dance recital!
We celebrated Shep’s baptism on Mother’s Day and Memorial Day with a flag cake, took our inaugural family bike ride, and traveled to Nashville to visit my sister Kim! I started a book hashtag and we chatted about how we read. We splashed in the neighborhood pool and had lots of picnics.
In a scary turn of events, my sister Kate was diagnosed with a brain tumor in May. She had surgery to remove it and, praise God, it was benign. After a summer of recuperation, she is pretty much back to normal and the outlook is good. This was the most serious medical issue one of my nearest and dearest has faced, and it was a surreal and jarring part of my year. (That train photo above is from one of June’s and my trips to visit her, which was a bright spot.)
June learned the joy of paper chains as we counted down to a week in the Outer Banks with John’s family, giving us lots of material to work with for Volume 4! On the blog, I shared a new insight into one of my Dad’s maxims, and answered your questions about our transition from one to two kiddos in three parts: one, two, three.
July saw us in Maine for lots of cousin giggles and early morning walks. We celebrated three of the best birthdays — John, John Shepherd, and sweet America — and I hosted my first (annual?) book swap party!
After limping through the summer with a string of 2-3-post months, I was grateful to come back swinging in August. We discussed not wearing makeup, the best books we’ve ever read, and our new mortgage plan. John and I kicked up our bike rides to three per week as our race drew ever closer; August was a very sweaty month. A highlight was celebrating Shep’s birthday at Pullen Park with dear friends and family (and the cutest animal party hats!).
We crossed the finish line of our MS race in September, though not without a few twists and turns along the way. Our seventh camping trip almost did us in (but we saw a whole new side of Shep) and I headed to the mountains for work. In honor of our seventh wedding anniversary, John and I answered your relationship questions here, here, and here. I also shared a peek at a few toy storage solutions that have been helpful for us!
Katie struck again with the most darling DIY Thanksgiving banner, our mini session photos came back (!), and we tucked in around the table to celebrate with the Terhunes and my family. I shared one of our go-to recipes (and some thoughts on trade offs) as well as six things on my November holiday checklist and my ideas for helper gifts.
Finally, we had a really wonderful December, one that was full of magic but didn’t feel stuffed. June, it must be said, is a most appreciative audience for all of my magic-making attempts, which makes the holidays a joy. I would bottle her up and keep her here forever if I could.
But alas, I cannot — and so, I stop to appreciate what is and what was. I notice the good things, do my best to facilitate more of them, and remember to thank God for every delight (and for being with us in the struggles) along the way.
I’m about to wrap up my PowerSheets and am excited to share my 2020 goals with you soon. I’m building off of what worked last year and can’t wait to dig in to them little by little over the next many months.
I know I’ve said it before, but I am SO excited for what we’ll discuss here in 2020. Thank you for being here, and for sharing so generously with me! It’s one of the delights of my life. Wishing you a healthy, happy, and abundant new year. I’ll see you soon! :)
I mean, if that doesn’t sound like an adventure, what does?! Truthfully, our seventh camping trip together almost did the Rays in, I think, but in the end, we’ve all agreed we’re going back next year :) Here’s a peek at our weekend away, if you’d like to see!
This year, we chose Lake James State Park for our home base. Our side-by-side tent sites were close to the wash house, which was perfect for our frequent visits! The park itself was perched up on a hill without any lake views, but it was a quick drive to the beach — which we took advantage of, as you’ll see below!
Sometimes we camp in the spring and sometimes in the fall; this year we chose August to give the December baby a chance to grow up a bit! We’ve each camped with a 9-month-old in our family, and know it can be a tough age (limited mobility=frustration). That, in addition, to coming in with a sleep deficit, pretty well summed up the challenges for the Rays.
Of course, there were a million delights along the way, too! Conversation around the campfire, “dance recitals” in the road next to our campsite, a beautiful hike, time in the water, yummy meals, and lots of sweet moments.
We ventured out to revisit an old favorite hike – Lower Catawba Falls – and though it was a beautiful day, we were a little disappointed: we were sharing the trail with so many others, it felt like we were at Disney World! It was a shocking change from our first visit to these falls 8 or so years ago, when we maybe saw three other hikers. Still beautiful, but I wouldn’t recommend it at this point if you’re looking for solitude. (It is, however, a mostly flat hike with a lovely payoff at the end, so it remains great for families.)
Since it was Labor Day weekend, it was also warm enough to enjoy Lake James itself, and we had a perfect day for it! It feels like the scene below could be from 1980 or 2019, doesn’t it?
There are many things I love about camping, but I’ll sum up this post with two of my favorites.
First, camping, in our lives, is the pinnacle of the slow pace of life I aim for, and particularly, the slow parenting. One of my favorite memories from this trip is the hour or more the kiddos spent digging in the gravel of our campsite. Literally just spoons and plastic cups and rocks, and they could have stayed there all day.
Our world is so often not set up for exercising a longer attention span or enjoying simple activities, but the world of camping is. I’m thankful for these trips, because they give me new ideas and a renewed desire to add this kind of space to our normal lives.
Second, I love how new locations and the time to sink into them allow us to get to know someone in a different way. I’ve alluded to this trip giving me new insight into Shep’s personality, and it’s true that I feel like I saw a whole new side of it. I had a conception of him as moody, often grumpy for no reason, and with a short attention span.
Camping showed me that he is perfectly content and perfectly able to sink into an activity for an extended period as long as he’s given freedom of movement and free access to materials. As a mama, one of my most important duties is to know the hearts and minds of my kiddos so I can speak into them and love them well, and I’m grateful for anything that gives me more insight. Sometimes, all it takes is a change of location for a fresh perspective.
Friends, thanks for graciously accepting this very un-Christmas-y post so close to Christmas, ha! As always, my hope in sharing these camping recaps (in addition to recording our memories!) is to encourage you to take YOUR family outside. If I can answer any questions or cheer you on as you consider it, it would be my delight. Our past archives might be helpful, too…
As I dreamed about 2019 at the end of last year, both with John and on my own, the desire to move more as a family came up again and again. Over the last few years of pregnancy and newborn life, fitness has not been our highest priority, but this felt like the right year to challenge ourselves to stretch beyond our comfort zone. We quickly settled on road biking as a fitting activity for our family’s current stage, and when we saw that there was an MS fundraising ride in New Bern towards the end of the year, we had a goal to work toward!
I shared a little bit of our journey along the way, mostly in my monthly updates, but I thought I’d write this post to house everything in one place, both for my memories and for anyone else’s reference! It’s a doozy, so let’s go!
My biking history: In September 2014, I bought a road bike off Craiglist. For a few months, John and I rode about once a week, usually 15-20 miles at a time. Then, I got pregnant, then we had a newborn, then I got pregnant again, then another newborn, and pretty much our only form of exercise for four years was walking around our neighborhood and the occasional hike.
John has a more extensive biking history, including riding in two two-day MS 150 rides in college.
Gear: Cycling is certainly not the least-expensive form of exercise, though once you have the initial equipment the ongoing cost is minimal. My used bike was $425 several years ago. (John’s was a gift from his parents in high school!) We also each purchased two pairs of bike shorts (key for long rides! Mine here and here and John’s), two jerseys (mine and John’s here and here), two water bottles, and sport sunglasses (mine, John’s), and I had to replace my helmet and bike gloves. John uses clipless pedals; I just wear regular sneakers.
Since we hadn’t ridden our bikes in several years, we opted to take them to our local shop for a tune-up last spring, which was about $75.
Finally, since we were riding with kiddos this time around, we needed some equipment for them! After much research, we opted for the Burley Bee trailer, which has excellent reviews and is easy to disassemble and transport. We bought ours used in great condition on Facebook Marketplace for $200 (they retail for $350).
Again, there was certainly a start-up cost, but in a way I think it was helpful — I was quite literally “bought in” to this new activity, and had a financial incentive to follow through.
Training plan: After getting the okay from our pediatrician when Shep was 10 months old, we took our first family bike ride at the beginning of June – a short jaunt on our neighborhood’s greenway. In June and July we aimed to ride twice a week, and in August (the month before the MS ride), we kicked it up to three times a week. It took sacrifice and buckets of patience on the part of our kids to ride that frequently, but I’m proud to say we did it!
Our pattern was to ride twice during the week, and then do a longer ride on Saturday or Sunday. Our typical weekday rides were an out-and-back 15-mile stretch of the American Tobacco Trail (we parked at the New Hope Church Road access), and on weekends, we’d aim for 30 miles (doing our 15-mile stretch twice) or 40 miles (which we’d typically do on the Neuse River Greenway). 40 miles was a stretch for our kids, but we were able to sneak in a few of that length when gracious parents were visiting and willing to babysit. June pretty happily rode along for whatever distance we covered, but I’ll be honest — Shep was often NOT pleased, especially at the beginning. Most days he would eventually fall asleep, which worked out well for everyone :) We usually aimed for a 13-mile-an-hour or less pace.
John exclusively pulled the trailer, which was a perfect handicap — since he would have left me in the dust otherwise.
My tips for riding with kids: invest in a quality trailer, so that the ride is as smooth as possible. And make sure they’re not hungry when you start (and still bring snacks!).
The MS ride: In June, we officially signed up for the 125-mile distance of the New Bern MS ride, held in September. We chose an MS ride for not much of a better reason than because John had already ridden in two of them, but in March, our choice took on a new poignancy when John’s cousin was hit with a sudden and devastating onset of the disease.
The choice of New Bern was easy — it’s fairly close to our home, we thought the race route along the coast would be beautiful, and – most importantly – the waterfront route would be almost entirely flat :) We did not really train on hills, and in the past, I have been notoriously bad at them.
The week of the race, with Hurricane Dorian bearing down on North Carolina’s coast, we received the disappointing news that the ride had been canceled. The organizers suggested riders transfer to another two-day ride in North Carolina later in the month, but we opted to transfer to the Nation’s Capital ride that same weekend. Though it was only a one-day ride, it was based out of Reston (where my sister- and brother-in-law live), and would allow us to ride that weekend as we had been planning. After so much build-up, it felt good to be able to channel that energy and continue with a modified plan instead of waiting several more weeks!
The race was on September 8th, which turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous day – blue skies and about 60 degrees when we started, climbing to around 75 with some clouds later in the day. We chose the 70-mile route for our one-day ride, and pedaled away from the starting line a little after 7am. One fun thing about our change in plans: our brother-in-law, Joe, rode with us for the first twenty miles! He wasn’t officially registered, but since the race was on the public greenway, he just blended into the crowd :) Joe set a brisk pace for us and it was great to start the day with him!
The route was an out-and-back with a loop. The first 20 and last 20 miles were on the greenway and flat and fairly straight, past scenic Virginia towns, wooded stands, and pastures with grazing cows.
The middle 30 miles — whoa, mama. The middle section was on the road, not on the greenway, and it was EXTREMELY hilly – we were almost constantly climbing and descending (what felt to me like) very steep hills. Considering we had not trained AT ALL on hills, I am proud of how well I did on them. One thing that helped: the Virginia landscape that we were riding through was absolutely stunning, with centuries-old homes, rural gardens, picture-perfect horse pastures, and stone barns gliding past. Plus, being on the road versus the greenway — with the need to be alert to cars, watch for directional signage, and occasionally stop at a light — kept my brain from thinking about my body being tired :)
One thing that surprised me: though we consistently saw other riders throughout the day, we were often pretty much on our own. When I imagined the ride, I pictured riding in a large pack, but that was definitely not the case. New Bern is a much larger ride, so perhaps it would have been different had we followed our original plan! The experience felt more low-key than I was anticipating, and luxurious — I don’t usually get 7 set-aside hours to spend with John and talk about whatever we want! :)
By 11am we had completed the middle loop and were sitting down to lunch. Along the route there were several rest stops with water and snacks as well as a lunch stop at a restaurant right next to the greenway. Every MS ride is a bit different, but our lunch was a really yummy sit-down buffet.
We enjoyed lunch, but the first half hour after we got back on the trail was definitely our hardest of the day – it was like our bodies had hardened up from sitting, and my rear, back, and arms were feeling it. (Interestingly, my legs felt fine.) We powered through, though, and about an hour later were approaching the finish line. John’s parents, Nat and Joe, and all the kiddos were waiting for us where the greenway passes behind Nat and Joe’s home, which was a fun burst of energy and hugs right before we crossed the finish line!
And then we were turning the final corner, passing under the arch, and accepting medals and cold towels to a cheering crowd! :) We finished in just under 7 hours, well under our goal pace of 12 miles per hour.
Though the idea of me riding in a 70-mile bike ride sounded incredibly far-fetched as recently as June, here is my encouragement: in this season of life, the hardest part was never the training, but instead, making room for the training. We had to make room in our schedules, and we had to make room in our budget (because weeknight training rides often required dinner out immediately following).
With a three-year-old and a one-year-old, it would have been a LOT easier to just stay home, but the feelings of unity, accomplishment, pride, and freedom that flowed from this goal were one of my favorite parts of my year. Working toward this goal with John was especially wonderful — I was legitimately so proud of him every ride (especially pulling that trailer!!), and cheering each other on was a joy. The feeling of accomplishing something together was twice as sweet as if I had done it alone. I’m really grateful for that. And excited to continue riding next year :)
Friends, thank you for following along, and for your encouragement (and donations!) along the way! I am grateful to have raised just over $1,500 for MS research with your help. Next up: figuring out how we can keep up our momentum in the colder months, when it gets dark too early to ride after work! :)
