Beach Week 2026

On this gloomy Monday morning I am flashing back to our very, very sunny beach week. Brad had to work after our Scotland trip and with a huge project launching next week, but the kids and I joined Mom and Shannon at our usual Kure Beach house:

A kind stranger snapped this picture of us on our last evening beach walk, but I think our groupies might have been better:

Shannon did capture some of my favorite recent pictures of the kids, though:

Our big adventure this year was a trip to the Karen Beasley Turtle Hospital. Injured sea turtles are flown here from all over the East Coast for healing and rehabilitation. We learned so much about the turtles, and our guide was truly passionate about the work:

It's amazing how much they can do for these big guys:

The kids even got matching sweatshirts:

The other new feature was family presentation night. I shared tidbits previously unshared from Scotland, but Issa stole the show. She presented her thesis:

She also presented on Mummia and 21 Pilots Lore:

It was such a fun night!

The rest of the week was a fun combination of lots of lounging:

And ocean bobbing:

And great food:

Issa spent a lot of time coloring by number:

And Evan built his biggest Lego set yet:

These are not even all of the bags:

It is a super cool Pokemon build:

Although I had to work more than I would like, I also finished book 23 there and finished book 24 this morning. Book 23 was the next in the ACOTR series:

This series just gets better and better. The next read is in the same series. She had actually written the next big book, and she realized that we needed to know more about the characters' histories and values to understand that book, so she wrote and released this book:

It moves the overall plot forward, but it also really does shine a light into each other characters in ways that I really appreciate! I will be starting the next book in the series tonight!

I love the beach, and I especially love all of the space to just be and talk with family.