As we wrapped up the school year, we were beyond excited to embark on our summer adventure. This trip was long overdue as the pandemic restrictions had closed down the Panamanian airports for much of 2020 and prevented us from seeing our family. Summer vacation and all the holidays that we would normally celebrate in the U.S., we spent in Panama away from family in 2020. It was often heartbreaking for me, especially Christmas, but a year and a half after not seeing my family, we were finally boarding a plan to the U.S. We had six weeks of summer fun planned, and we were splitting it three weeks in North Carolina and three weeks in Buffalo,NY.
We couldn’t wait to get to North Carolina. During those isolated months, my sister had a baby, EE, who was now almost a year old- and we hadn’t even met her yet. Of course, she immediately feel in love with AJC, as all babies do. My older niece, LoRo, was now a full fledged threenager. She and PJC are actually the same height-even though he’s almost two years older. They became fast friends. We spent the three weeks doing all of our favorite N.C. activities- Marbles museum, parks, waterslides, etc. We also took them to Wrightsville Beach for a vacay during our vacay. Uncle Dave even took the boys fishing for the first time. The only downside was that I had signed them up for camps which I thought were going to be amazing. They HATED them and threw fits almost every morning about going. Lesson learned.
Brian and I were also lucky enough to take a weekend getaway to the Outer Banks, NC thanks to the best Aunt and Uncle ever. We are always on the search for where we could relocate in the U.S. when the time comes. OBX had been on our list for a while to check out as a contender. It definitely had pros and cons, but we could make it work, and we’ll keep it on the list for now.
As our time came to an end in Raleigh, the fun wasn’t over. My sister and family were joining us for some of our time in Buffalo. With the dads working, my sister and I braved the flight by ourselves with four kids. It was EE’s first flight, and we prepared ourselves for chaos. Luckily the flight was short and all the kids were angels. AJC even invited himself into the cockpit!
Time for some summer Buffalove!
Family Stoke 