Rewind - 2011 Topsail Island Vacation wrap up

Our last day on the beach, some pool time, and exploring the fishing pier.  It has been so fun to look back on this vacation from 2011.






The grown up guys did a lot of beach fishing on this trip, and ended up catching this little shark.  For real.



Of course Shawn had to bury the kids in the sand.  They loved it.



This was the trip where we really took off on learning to swim.  Fun to see him when he was much more hesitant.





And the pier, as we were heading out of town.

Rewind - Topsail Island Beach Vacation in 2011

I remember being so excited to take all the kids back out around sunset, back in June 2011, when we were visiting Topsail Island, NC on vacation with our good friends.  It was such a fun evening.  We played and enjoyed the beach when sun wasn't the big concern.  We played a lively round of Duck Duck Goose, and let me say, that the ocean and sand and duck duck goose make a fantastic combination.

All of these beach images I've been posting were batch edited.  It comes down to a matter of time for me.  Also, they were batch edited back in 2011.  I see now as I look back how dark they are - under exposed.  My poor little D90 was trying as hard as he could.  The ISO is the part of the D800 I love the most.  But I also see as I went through the images to select the ones to show here.... my D90 was struggling with focus, even back in 2011.  Soooooo many images the focus was soooo terribly wrong.  Amazing how clear it is when I look back - how long I struggled as an artist when it was the equipment that was failing me.

What I love most about these images in this post is how they transport me back in time to that amazing evening.  Yes, of course, I have the memory of the night we spent at sunset on the beach.  But seeing the images - now I remember the ramp down to the beach, the perpetual grin the Little Lady had on her face when she saw the ocean, how Little Buddy refused to hold still and let me get a shot of his EYES, so the one I ended up getting has him pretending to pick his nose, the Duck Duck Goose, the splashing, the JOY.  It is this that makes me fall in love with photography every single day.

Rewind - visiting the USS North Carolina Battleship in 2011

We took a day and visited the USS North Carolina Battleship in Wilminton, back in June 2011 when we visited Topsail Island.

Rewind - Topsail Beach Vacation 2011 days 3 and 4

I absolutely loved the condo we stayed at during our 2011 trip to Topsail Island.  It had the reverse floor plan, with the living area on the 3rd floor.  The balcony was amazing.  So awesome to sit out there and listen and observe the coast.

[in case you missed the earlier post, I'm going back and posting my beach images from our vacation to Topsail Island back in 2011]



























One really really awesome experience we had was seeing the Topsail Island Sea Turtle hospital release their turtles back into the ocean.  It was sooooo cool.

Rewind - Beach Vacation Topsail Island, NC in 2011

I am an organized, OCD type personality, but I've had to make peace with that over the years.  Sometimes, blog posts get put to the back burner.  Sometimes, personal photos get pushed to the side.  In ideal land, I'd want to process my images all in chronological order... but if I did that, I'd never get around to doing anything.  I have to compromise.  And that has been good for me on the whole (dude - the world didn't explode when I posted something out of order!).  I'm a much more laid back person than I was ten years ago.  That's a good, good thing.

My friend, Tiffany, from Peanut Blossom recently took her girls to the beach for the FIRST TIME!!!   Dude, that was exciting for me.  If you know me in real life, you know we LOVE the beach.  And when I say that, I mean we love being in the sand, in the water, enjoying nature.  Not shopping, playing putt-putt, or eating ice cream - or whatever those of you who aren't nature fans do when you visit the ocean.   I love experiencing the beach.  I love playing with my kids at the beach.  And I love photographing at the beach.

I've learned so much more about photography since I took these images in June of 2011 (more than two  years ago... yikes).  I've learned so much more about beach photography since I took these images.  And wow, how my kids have changed!!!  That is perhaps the best thing in going back to see these.  I miss my little guys.  But still, it is fun to see and enjoy the beach for a bit today.  Since I got a shout out from Tiffany in her post, I thought perhaps I should update my own blog with all of my beach photography work.

We visited the middle of Topsail Island, North Carolina with a family that we are close to back in June 2011.  The kids thought this vacation was the best ever.  Here we have the first day of that vacation.