Emerald Isle - the Eclipse and Eleanor's birthday

The last full week of August we spent at the beach with Chris' family. It was a very relaxing trip and we all had a great time. It was a very nice way to wrap up our summer before getting back into the swing of things for fall this week and next. As usual, I have a ton of pictures, so I'll probably split the week up into a couple posts.

We all stopped on the way down south at Wilbur's - a place we stop every year on the journey for lunch and it is always delicious. This was Jane's first time to Wilbur's because we didn't take a trip to Emerald Isle last summer.

The evening we rolled in was gorgeous, as were almost all of the evenings that week. I think it was supposed to rain a lot of the week and I think it rained one night (in the middle of the night), but otherwise we had near perfect weather. The sunsets were magnificent.

The next day, Monday, was the day of the solar eclipse. We were located at about 92% totality having traveled a few hours south, and it was pretty amazing. We all had a pool party in the middle of the afternoon to witness the eclipse.

From our eventful Monday, we moved into another eventful day, because Eleanor's FOURTH BIRTHDAY was on Tuesday! She woke up and immediately wanted to put on her birthday dress and ribbon from last year.

Once everyone else was up, we set up her birthday string while she attempted to wait patiently in our room.

She had so many fun surprises because of all the family members there to celebrate her birthday with!

Jane didn't totally get the whole concept and attempted to commandeer pretty much everything Eleanor got. Eleanor was actually fairly gracious and shared with her sister because she's "grown up now." (Sadly this trend hasn't persisted too much past her actual birthday, hah!)

One of the adopted Stratton children for the week brought the girls gifts from their family - real shin guards and soccer balls! Eleanor was very excited, especially as she starts real soccer this Saturday!

Eleanor decorated her own cake the day before and was very excited to share cake with everyone that night.

We of course went to the beach during the day (this picture from one of the family member's instagram stories).

And then we headed back down to the beach after dinner for some family pictures.

We also let the girls stay up late to do glow sticks which Gaby and Papa Laser had brought with them. After about ten or twenty minutes though, they both started saying they were tired and ready for bed. These two like their sleep!

The rest of the week was slightly less eventful, but definitely relaxing!