Visiting the North Carolina coast on Father’s Day weekend has become one of our favorite family traditions. It helps that three years in, the weather has been pretty darn perfect each time (there must be something about that weekend in June!). Perfect weather or not, it’s a delight to discover new corners of this state we love in honor of our favorite dad. This year’s trip was to Bald Head Island – come take a peek, if you’d like! Longtime readers may remember that John and I have been to Bald Head Island just once before – almost 10 years ago, when I was pregnant with June! BHI is accessible only by ferry, and the only civilian vehicles on the island are golf carts, which makes it relatively inaccessible but delightfully relaxing. We left on Sunday afternoon after church and headed home around noon on Wednesday. It was the perfect amount of time to explore the island! The first order of business when planning our trip was deciding where to stay. While there are lovely homes on the island, most rentals are for a week. Since we were staying just a few days, we opted for the Marsh Harbor Inn, which is an easy walk from the ferry. We stayed in one of the Shipwatch Suites. While the free-flowing popcorn in the dining room, the Fruit Loops every morning (a continental breakfast was included with our room), and the golf cart (also included with our room) were all highlights, the kids were UTTERLY ENTRANCED by their accommodations: three built-in bunk beds in the tiniest nook of a room. This was Annie’s first time sleeping outside of a crib or pack and play, and she was in heaven. As for our itinerary, it was quite laidback. We arrived on the 4pm

If you feel like you’ve been seeing a lot of trip recap posts lately, you’re not wrong. As I mentioned, April was unusually full of travel for our family and, per my New Year’s resolution, you’re hearing about all the escapades tout de suite. I know localized travel posts aren’t everyone’s favorite, so I appreciate your graciousness. Hopefully, even if you never plan to visit where we’ve been, you’ll find something to take away from the details that you can transpose onto your own next destination – or something else entirely in your life! Before we dive in, I also wanted to thank you for offering your generous thoughts on my recent survey. 75+ of you gave me much to consider. I’m still mulling over the next best step, but in the meantime, know your engagement here is very much appreciated. I was talking this week with a friend who works in marketing and with small businesses about the survey, and she was blown away by the number of responses I received. Knowing this community, I was grateful but not surprised. Thank you, thank you. Now: onto the Biltmore! This particular trip was a fun and unique one. As many of you know, John and I are passionate about personal finance. We have had the gift of coming alongside my younger sister over the last few years as she has worked to pay off her undergraduate and graduate student loans. The three of us would meet a few times a year to review her net worth (just a fancy term for a snapshot of your debts and assets), talk through her budget, check in on her payoff plan progress, and talk through any big-picture financial questions on her mind. And, of course, to cheer her on! Debt freedom can take

If you’re not familiar with the history of Articles Club, you might be surprised to know how it started: with a gathering of a dozen or so strangers in my living room, united only by their love for reading interesting writing and discussing interesting ideas (and the fact that they read either my or Stephanie’s blog, ha). Over the last seven years, most of those strangers have moved on, replaced over time by a sturdier and sturdier group of acquaintances, then friends, then members of a group text (don’t laugh – the advent of the group text was a big moment in the friendship evolution!). We’ve welcomed babies, we’ve weathered a pandemic, and now – we’ve stayed in house together for the weekend. It was, as you might imagine, a delight. I’d love to share a few details, if you’d like to see! Thank you to many of the AC gals for sharing these photos! And if you’re wondering why Club is sometimes spelled Clurb, it is not a typo – just a bit of an inside joke :) Planning a weekend retreat: Articles Club currently has 12 members – that’s a lot of ladies (and husbands and kids and pets back home) to organize! So we started early. After casually discussing the idea of a weekend retreat for a few months, we polled the group in August to gauge availability of January and February weekends. (And I mean literally polled – we used Doodle.) We felt a winter getaway would be cheaper, easier to coordinate, and would give us something to look forward to after the holidays. Once we had a weekend that worked with everyone’s schedule, we split up into committees. The committees were thus: Logistics, Activities, Food, Beverage, and Surprises & Swag. Logistics researched rentals, booked the

While I do have several goals for the year, I have just one resolution. (Saying that with a bit of a cheeky wink – the difference between goals and resolutions, in my mind, being that goals are things I plan for and track, and resolutions are simply well-meaning intentions. Needless to say I don’t go in much for resolutions :)) Anyway, here’s the resolution: I resolve to post my Em for Marvelous travel recaps in the month they happened, or the month after. I am… not known for this, which is why I’m posting our October trip to Highlands here in January. But I’d really like to be better, because it’s much easier to remember details and, I think, capture the feel of a trip when it’s fresh in my mind! The problem is usually that travel recaps loom large in my mind, since they’re some of the more laborious posts I write with all of their photos and details and linking. But I do love them for family memory keeping purposes, and I’m always delightfully surprised by the number of you who have written and commented over the years that you’ve used a travel post as inspiration for your own family’s adventures. (Thank you for letting me know – truly, a huge compliment!) In that spirit, let’s chat about our most recent visit to Highlands, NC! John and I had been to Highlands a few times before – most recently in 2020, when it was a welcome respite in the middle of all things pandemic. That trip was pretty darn wonderful, so it was rather bold of us to attempt a repeat so soon, ha! Our 2022 trip was delightful in its own way, but not without its challenges, as you’ll see. Highlands is about 5 hours from our