Family vacation pictures! ❤
This could get both really awesome/scary depending on your interest in looking at other people’s family vacation pictures, so either grab a coffee and sit down (yay!), or run away. Run for your life. Because I am a person of the picture loving variety so I have a tendency to share pictures for dayyys.
I think I mentioned a few times (!!) what an incredible time we had on this really special family trip. The trip originated way back as a Golden Birthday Year Vacation for my sisters and me. I always thought the whole world celebrated golden birthdays, but I’ve quickly discovered that this is a very un-heard of thing on the West and East coast. You’re missing out, you slick coastal folk! Us Midwesterners know how to make a celebration out of anything and we’re prowwwd of it.
My biological sisters and I all have our golden birthdays on the same year, THIS year, which we figured out (there was research) there’s just a 1 in 28,141 or 0.0036% chance of that happening. It’s rare! Special! Fun! Let’s take a trip! That’s what we said as a family back when we were tiny people and our family was a normal size. Then my siblings were adopted, my sister and I got married to our favorite hometown boys, and she and her husband just had the sweetest little baby, and so now the total family head count has more than doubled since the original trip was planned. Like, whoa. We’re large and in charge.
Because we’re such a big family, we don’t often take trips where we go somewhere on an airplane. This was actually the first time and maybe even the only time that we will ever all fly somewhere together and spend a whole seven days together relaxing and beaching! Amazing. So, so amazing. We stayed in a big beach house on Emerald Isle that was perfect for big families that need a little bit of everything. It was right on the beach and it was gorgeous. The wrap-around windows overlooking the beach were 200% dreamy.
The combination of this beautiful place with a meaningful, once-in-a-lifetime family trip puts this vacation in my Top Three Trips ever taken in all my 28 years of life, ranking right up there with our honeymoon in Mexico and the road trip we took to Montana with our friends last fall. This week was just… wow. So precious to me.
So enough talking about it. Here’s a look at our week.
I tried to consolidate all those pictures into a little grid so you wouldn’t have to scroll for the next 85 years. Like that? Aw yeah. Just for you, friends. Just for you.
Thanks for pic-sharing with me today! Except do you have just one more second? because there’s one more thing I have to tell you about –>
Backing up a tiny bit, in case any of you are new readers: last year Bjork and I lived and worked in the Philippines at an orphanage, and I had a small class of students – six beautiful girls ranging in age from 12-16 years old. Two of them left for adoption in the US before we even left the Philippines, but there were four girls still at the orphanage when we left to go back home to the US, and my heart broke into one million pieces when I said goodbye to them. We had no idea if we’d ever see them again or if they’d be adopted and get a second chance at a family. Most of them just had a few years left before they aged out (18) and would no longer be eligible for adoption.
I will never ever forget the raw emotion I felt saying goodbye to them outside the chaotic airport in Cebu.
A few months after we got home, we found out that two of my students, sisters, were going to be adopted to the US with their five other siblings. Just let that sink in for a minute. Seven kids, all matched for adoption, all staying together in their new family. Praise the Lord! And the best news of all: their family was located in North Carolina. Through some last minute emails and a few serendipitous circumstances, we made last-minute plans to stop at their house and see the kids before heading to the airport to fly home. SAY WHAT!
My palms were sweating as we drove up their driveway, because I’m a dork like that, and also because what if they were nervous around us or what if this was awkward and weird and all just a bad idea? I had visions of the kids hiding behind trees and throwing things at us and making faces at us because like, who are these strangers? So rational thinking is not always my strong suit. But what happened instead was that we opened the van door and the kids came running, RUNNING, into our arms, and I found myself in the same exact position as I was almost exactly one year ago, group hugging slash smothering these incredibly sweet kids, only this time the tears were happy. So, so happy.
North Carolina, you are breathtaking. My new friends and your children from CSC, you are SO super cool. Thank you for letting us visit your home and fill our hearts up to the brim.
And my family, I love you so much! We’re big and loud and sometimes a little overwhelming and I wouldn’t have it any other way. XO
I feel the same way about vacation pics
Oh, Lindsay. You make me soooo want to be a part of your big, loud, wonderful family. I love it;-)
Spending my Saturday night catching up with your blog and this post is such a heart warmer. Your enthusiasm for life and family and helping others always touches me.
Thanks Ashley! What a sweet comment! XO
Wonderful Lindsay. Beautiful photos and beautiful family! Looks like you are getting a little practice with your nephew? What a cutie pie. No time for a real vacay this year, so we are going to drive 20 minutes away, to the beach here, and stay at a swanky place for a few days as splurge. We need it! Maybe I will have to post. You inspire me to share more of myself in my posts. I really need to do that and am trying to break into that mode. You do it so easily! Hugs!
Sounds perfect, Sally! If we lived in California I think we’d do the same. 🙂
I guess this sounds so silly, but I thought you were referring to Ireland as the Emerald Isle at first. Oops. Gorgeous photos and your nephew is way too cute.
No, the funny thing is my sister just returned from the Ireland Emerald Isle on a study abroad experience, and then we went straight to the other NC Emerald Isle the day after she came home! 🙂 Weird timing.
You were down my way here in eastern NC! Emerald Isle is a beautiful place. Beautiful photos and glad you had a great vacation with your family!
Thanks Amy! You sure live in a beautiful place! 🙂
Hi Lindsay!
Your pics are absolutely gorgeous. What camera do you use?
Thank you! for these I was using a canon 6d with a 70-200 f/2.8 lens.
What a great thing that you could see the children from the orphanage. Things don’t always work out so well but how perfect was this? Thanks for sharing it with us.
You vacationed in the county I live in!!! So glad you had such a great time!! Love all the dolphins, sea animals, birds, etc….can’t forget to mention the wild ponies on Shackleford Banks….and shelling is awesome here! Our beaches run east and west….most beaches on the east coast run north and south! We can see the sunrise….AND the sunset over the ocean here. 🙂 I do have to admit….I live in *PARADISE*!!! LOL
It really is! We’ll be back soon I hope!!
As much as I adored your vacation pictures, your story about the girls from the Philippines completely took my heart. I literally have tears in my eyes — tears! threatening to fall! in a public Panera restaurant! — reading your words and feeling your joy warming my heart. Those wonderful girls will remember you, your love, and your generosity for the rest of their lives. You are incredible Lindsay!
Lovely pictures. What did you use to make the picture grid?
Photoshop 🙂
1) I’m crying. I love your reunion with those precious kids.
2) I think that 63% of all photos I have of Bjork from the-good-old-days he’s making that same exact pose/face as your adorable family photo.
3) Belated congrats to you on your entrance into full-time blogging! Oh the places you’ll go…
xoxo
hahaha! some things never change, right? 🙂 Thanks for the comment Jen!
Your writing is so genuine and engaging. You have a beautiful family and these are such lovely pictures. I especially love the picture of you with your students- so precious! I always feel so blessed to hear about adoption stories!
Thanks Emily! Really appreciate that.
I LOVE the photos, Lindsay! Thanks for sharing them! Beautiful photos – beautiful family…
Thank you Melissa! We watched some old family videos and you made an appearance during some piano recital moments. 🙂 so fun!
Beautiful photos!! <3
Your family vacation looks like it was a fun and enjoyable time for all! I’ve always dreamed of being able to do the same with my family. Glad you all had a great time. Thanks for sharing the fun pics!
That trip looks like perfection! Relaxation, sun, and family…so great. And, I teared up when you got to that last part. So wonderful! I can only imagine how you felt.
It was amazing. So grateful that that’s how the trip ended!
Man, I really shouldn’t have chopped onions while reading this post! 😉 Beautiful photos and story. Thanks for sharing!
I had never heard of a Golden Birthday (I live in California) so I just googled it and I gotta say……I am SO jealous that this is a thing you and your family (and I assume friends and neighbors) celebrate because it’s pretty awesome. And I’m even more jealous because mine has already passed…womp, womp.
hahaha! too cute. can you celebrate your silver birthday though? We just kind of made that up (it’s the double of your golden) but maybe it’s a real thing?!
This whole trip just makes my heart so happy <3 you seriously take the BEST pictures. I definitely know what a golden birthday is! Mine will be when I'm 18 (three more years!) I love big families. It's just me and my mom at my house, but I love when we get together with the whole family. Heavenly Chaos. You really inspire me how you helped those girls so much in the Philippines. I really think I'd like to spend a year sometime helping like that <3
Thank you! I’ve loved learning more about photography this last year. And yes to big family chaos!
My favorite part of your vacation was hearing about your students being adopted! What a delight! Where is that husband so I can adopt again?!!!
EI is our yearly multi-generational vacation spot every year. These pictures are amazing. We’re heading down at the end of the month.
So fun! Hope you guys have a great time!
Coasties don’t celebrate Golden birthdays? Why??? That’s one of the many reasons I stayed and raised my kids in the Midwest. But…….now I think the hubby and I need to head to NC y’all!!!
Thanks for sharing your beautiful photos Lindsay, especially the ones of the baby. 🙂 What a great vacay.
We have LOTS of baby pictures.. he’s a camera magnet!
Aww…love the family vacay pictures..love the story of your students adoption even more – Lindsay, you have such a beautiful soul!
LOVE the pictures. Family vacations…sigh 🙂
Lindsay, stop making me cry! What a beautiful (and AMAZING!!!) story. I totally knew what you meant when you talked about your irrational fear of an awkward reunion. I once nannied for a three year old girl, and a couple months after the job ended, I arranged to see her again. She ran up to me and threw her arms around my neck and refused to let go for the longest time. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. Thanks for helping me relive that memory.
Also, I love that you share your family photos! 🙂
Thanks Beth! I try to keep myself under control with the photo sharing but I love seeing other people’s photo posts so I figure this is my place to share. 🙂