The months have ground away at us during the pandemic shutdowns. Kris’ company evaporated since all gatherings were forced to be canceled and since schools were closed, she could direct her attention to Ryder to keep his studies moving along (its really weird to all of a sudden watch your child reading and doing math!). I’m still working in my dining room office from 630 to 4 (or later) each day and I feel busier than ever. Day in, day out… its the same routine and we were ready for a break.
We had partnered with a few other friends (including Ethan’s godparents) to rent a house in the Outer Banks last fall. We were concerned that it wouldn’t be achievable and even whether it was wise to proceed, but as things started loosening up we made the decision to go for it. We know and trust the other families and we figured we would all be pretty isolated anyways. We planned to eat in for most of our meals anyways, so we saved bar and restaurant money.
We all congregated on a huge house on the Currituck Sound side of Corolla, NC last Saturday. The house was obviously set up for this with 4 master bedrooms, huge gathering places, swimming pool and twin dish washers. We were a 3 minute golf cart ride from the white sandy beach and the patios each had a magnificent view of a portrait sunset each night. Our days were purposefully slow: coffee, breakfast, pool, lunch, beach, dinner, sunset, reset. We sprinkled bike rides and ice cream runs in the middle and Brendan and I each amply poked under the hoods of our new trucks (he bought a brand new F150 2 days before leaving for this trip).
It was just the down time we needed. The 7 kids clearly needed the socialization after months of isolation. The much needed full week unwound most of the kinks in our psyches that have built up over the last 4 months (and beyond really) and we’re already planning for next year.
