Catch up part 1 - Duck Beach

This year Duck Beach was a major highlight. We played so hard that by the time I left, I looked Latina and had averaged approximately 4 hours of sleep per night for a week straight.

We had so many good times. So many. I will just let the pictures speak for me.

Always a good time with Scott.

Watermelon in the pool with my girls. Oh how I love this photo.

This is how rumors start about things at Duck Beach.

And this photo may be the wallpaper on my phone.

Uzi and Toddles

The view during sacrament meeting. Yep, I am sitting in the hall and there are hundreds of people standing around me. During sacrament meeting. This is not after church.

View from our kitchen deck.

Scott is obsessed with taking pyramid photos. Obsessed. In turn, I have a collection of pyramid photos. Luckily, they are always with some of my most favorite people.

Um, sorry, Scott....

Uzi and I had to hit up an island so that we could keep up with our Summer Island Adventure. We went down to Roanoke Island for a few hours the morning that we flew home. I have been there before, but it was the first unsuccessful English colony in North America. I get excited about it. =nerd

And for the Grand Finale, some mathematical equations for you:

1. Steph + Todd = Steph Todd

2. Kristy Uzelac + Stephanie Zundel = Kristephanie Zundelac (duh)

3. Me + Duck Beach + Good Friends = Happiness

PS - Wendy made a great list from people's follow up emails of fun memories from our house this year. Since this blog is really for me anyway (sorry, Rach), here is the list.

1. Dorian's cowboy recitation of "Square Dancing on My Heart" at Duck Deli

2. "Just Dance"...but not with the yellow controller... for HOURS... never got old

3. Mauri's photo shoot

4. Watching Kristine, Scott, and Christian work out while the rest of us ate breakfast

5. The video sent to our iphones of Vicki running and (trying to) jump on Shamu while Michael moves it out of the way!!!

6. Cruzin' to Duck and crankin' the tunes!!!

7. Norfolk Costco reunions with other 'Mormon Ducks'

8. Dance Parties galore til 3:00am!! Including spontaneous new dance moves such as the "Don't Stop Believing" group sit

9. Karaoke!! Don's Backstreet Boys backup dancers (Wendy, Kristi, & Alicia) and adoring crowd of female groupies

10. Double dream hands & feet dance by everyone in the house at once! shoulder. chin. shoulder, shoulder, shoulder...

11. Trying to build a beach pyramid with sunscreen lathered bodies

12. Toothpicks. Diver down. SAFETY FIRST!!! Carrie's epic fake-out bumping Scott out of the game & Anna getting pushed back in again, and again. SAFETY FIRST!!!

13. Scrum on steroids--Rita not being able to remember to let go of the cue ball

14. Ultimate Frisbee intimidating kick-off dances and goal celebrations

15. Dance prison--how was that Travis!

16. Alicia and Boone's eye of the tiger Rocky routine--complete with arm-chair cover & killer punches

17. Spencer's "hit me baby one more time" dedicated to Wendy (kinda freaky)

18. Brett's black man's hair

19. The birth of the best dance move ever...the jumping shimmy (perfected by Jen) :)

20. Scott's "chicky chicky parm parm" and more of his and Vick's Porter-isms and abbreviations

21. 3am viewing of Tom Haverford's food names...over, and over, and over.

22. "What you ought to know" celeb viewing

23. Rook tourney until the wee hours complete with pu-pu-pu-pu-poker faces. Or not.

24. Patti Papsicle and her many expressions of surprise. "Yeah, I was supwised."

25. Travis packing heat on his swim trunks!

26. Culinary genius of the meal leaders and their crews--pistachio salmon, margarita chicken, kabobs, mexican corn, breakfast blankies, brown sugar bacon, and who knew so much could be done with pre-birds??

27. Hot tub confessionals. (Brett's specialty).

28. Beach cruisers and long walks...

29. The "No Recording" sign outside our house.

30. Tons of toe trauma--including Brett jack-knifing his foot

31. Flying fighting kite, puzzling and riding house bike with no theft

32. Boogie boarding catching some totally awesome waves in the warm ocean

33. Trying to take the raft and oars out past the waves and getting pummeled!

34. Chasing crabs and being brave with Alicia to let them walk on our feet...Todd trying to be brave and then giving up and screaming like a girl

35. Pool play, pink floaties, watermelon, toothpicks and Shamu not to mention the subterranean divers

36. Martha Washington up-do contests in the hot tub

37. Patti singing "You Shook Me All Night Long"--OPERA STYLE

38. Watermelon Pool Scumming--including the opposing teams' clever strategies of "7 minutes in heaven" & "wedgies from hell"

39. Rob K's flash demonstration of why his chest doesn't look like the house owner's picture

40. Scott making wind for Alicia's hair with a cookie sheet during her celine dion cover debut

Duck Beach 2010

It seems like every year that I go to Duck Beach, I fail horribly at taking photos. I might take a few here or there, but I am seriously too busy catching up with old friends, laying on the beach, playing games in the pool, or sitting in the hot tub to take photos. That is why I am grateful for 2 things this year: 1. Photo happy friends and 2. The camera on my iphone.

I don't have a whole lot to say about any of the photos other than this year at Duck was so much fun. I think I slept about 10 hours total the entire time I was there. For those of you who have never been to Duck Beach and have inaccurate ideas of what happens there, let me break it down for you into a few easy categories.

1. Spending time with good friends.

Annette, Liz, Steph, and I went for a nature walk by the Corolla lighthouse the day that we arrived, but quickly turned around once we saw a sign for wildlife that included poisonous snakes.

The Scotts and Stephs of Duck Beach.

2. Taking naps in places other than your bed.

This was Mauri at Whalehead Beach after I screamed her name about 5 times. There were hundreds of people around her - even if you can't see them, she was in the middle of them.

Brent took a break from playing cards and within seconds, he was out.

Sunday afternoon nap in the hammock.

3. Chillin' in the hot tub.

This is the default location. People will be there at any given time during the day. This year I danced in the hot tub, had "pillow talk" with Mauri in the hot tub, and spent a lot of time there every day and sometimes at night after a skinny dip in the pool.

I don't know what Michael is doing in this photo, but it took me by surprise.

And by the time we took a group shot, I seemed to be ok with it. PS - been at Duck with all the people in this photo for multiple years. love them. squee!

4. Games!

Volleyball on the beach on Saturday. Don't be fooled - I didn't touch a volleyball. I did watch some people play though.

The toothpick game was the crowd favorite this year. The basic idea is that someone jumps into the deep end of the pool with one less toothpick than people. When he/she comes up, they yell "diver up" and the players are allowed to turn around and try to find the toothpicks in the pool. You must grab the toothpick upon jumping into the pool or you have to get out and try again. We played this for HOURS every day.

More toothpick game.

Indian leg wrestling for the newly vacant bed. As you may have seen before on this blog, I dominate in this sport.

Going to community baseball games.

The best things about this game were when Brent "almost" got hit by a foul ball while he was in the bathroom. The ball almost hit me in reality, but if he would have been sitting next to me instead of in the bathroom, he would have been in the line of fire. Brent, we are glad you are still alive. Also, Christian won a raffle and won $80 so he bought pizza for everyone in our house.

5. Posing with stupid inanimate objects from the house.





6. Sunday dinner

Sunday dinner caused quite a bit of drama this year, so I couldn't blog about Duck without mentioning how delicious these chicken breasts were.



7. Laughing at your funny friends.

"Sorry guys for being late; I was working....it on facebook."

"Now everyone lunge to the car!"

"And when the cop car lights went on, everyone scattered like cockroaches. I was pushing girls out of the way."

"Oh, this conversation is going downhill fast."

"I've been trying for five years to catch crabs on this beach. It's not going to happen now."

My Life Would Suck Without You - Part 1

Ok so I hope no one thought I was having a personal crisis or anything the other day with my semi-cryptic message. Just a little (haha) stressed out with work. I'm fine though - or at least I will be in the near future, and I think it will help my stress levels if I tell you about my awesome vacation that happened a few weeks ago.

I started off my travels in the Outer Banks, as I do most years over Memorial Day. This year I was really looking forward to spending quality time with good people - and when it comes to my friends, let's be honest; I was also looking forward to the food. Scott made some type of sauce for the corn on the cob. I think the main ingredients were mayonaise and parmesan cheese. Yep, seems right up my alley. And also - the caption to this photo is "Get that corn outta my face!"

And in no particular fun-ness order, we played pool Pit/spoons. If you don't know how to play Pit, click here. Rules for a slight variation on spoons are here. Our variation is that we put the spoons in the pool and then play Pit. Once someone has Pit, you have to go get a spoon. If you don't get one, you are out.

Playing Pit with wet cards gets a little tricky -

And they're off.

And here is more of me than I thought I'd ever post on my blog. I had some pretty awesome tan lines going on on my back, didn't I? My favorite part is the hand. Who hugged me with sunscreen on???!!

The last night that I was there, we went to a karaoke bar. Apparently Scott and I can't live if living is without you.

Scott, Me, Mauri, Brandon.

And I guess with pictures like the one below is how Duck Beach gets a bad reputation. Alicia, Steph, and I were having 'pillow talk' before bed and before we knew it, bam - 10 other people were on the bed with us. Can you even see my face? Kind of hard to make out, isn't it?

And these people - I love them. Too much to talk about in detail. The title of this post and my new favorite Kelly Clarkson song is dedicated to all of you.

And now, I will picture myself on the beach, holding hands with my dear friends before I go to bed. I had forgotten until I arrived there this year just how much I love being there. The scenery, the ocean, the laughs, the cheerwine. Ahh, bliss.

Until next year, my beloved Duck Beach.

Fun Day at the Beach

Monday was by far one of the most fun days I've ever had at the beach. I'm just lucky that a few friends took these pictures for me! Out of the multitude of fun things that we did that day, one of them was chicken fighting in the ocean.

If you click on the picture below and enlarge it, you can see all the guys getting pounded by a wave. Awesome. I love it when men are willing to sacrifice their lives to have the girls on their shoulders wrestling each other.

What happens after a series of chicken fights? Beach pyramid building, of course.

Huzzah!

...and they all fell down.

I blew this picture up for you at the risk of my modesty so that you can see what an awesome face I'm making while throwing sand at Scott's face. Kristine is also about to get sand down her britches. Ouch!