Musical Beds at the Beach

In the picture above I'm reading the paper at the beach cottage after all our guests have left. (My Sweetie took that picture with his phone and I was pretty impressed.) Although there are three bedrooms and three full baths, as you can see, the entire common area is not very large. So just imagine that first Saturday when we had 9 people at the cottage. Of course it was a beautiful day and people were wandering around out on the deck and deck area. I was standing on the deck and took this picture of Mom:

And down in another area I took this picture of Lo and Brad:

The original plan was that my brother, two nephews and older nephew's girlfriend were to spend the weekend and then Lo and my old friend M were to come on Sunday night and stay until Tuesday. But just because I have an idea in my head doesn't mean it's going to happen that way. Lo has a bulging disc in her neck and at the last minute her doctor changed her shot appointment to Monday morning, so she came on Saturday just for the night. In the meantime, My brother's family had decided that it would be fun if they all stayed until Monday. There is a fold-out couch and the cottage officially sleeps 8 and the 9th person there that Saturday was Mom who was just visiting for the day because she lives nearby, so we had enough beds, but people kept having to move around.

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We flew into Raleigh/Durham that first Thursday night and drove down to the beach. We spent the night with Mom. Around 1:00 or so my brother and the kids drove up. We all visited there at Mom's for a while because you can't get the cottage keys until after 3:00. We told them we would call when we were settled in. They got there and I gave the upstairs queen bedroom to nephew and girlfriend with the caveat that they would have to sleep on the fold-out on Saturday night.

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On Saturday afternoon, we stripped their bed and then when Lo arrived, we made it for her with her sheets. Then on Sunday, after Lo left, we remade the bed with the nephew's sheets. My old friend M arrived and had to sleep that night on the couch. Then on Monday after My brother and the kids left, we remade that bed with M's sheets. I made a lot of beds that weekend.

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This is my friend M:

That picture was actually taken after we left the beach at a little party at Lo's house in Durham the following Friday night. We spent the night there before flying out the next day.

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(I like being around M because I feel closer to Dad. M was with Dad in his final moments when he died at his retirement party, and also they were very good friends and saw each other almost every day. We talk about Dad alot.)

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I like how we arrange these beach trips with a bunch of people visiting in the first part of the week and then having the rest of the week just to ourselves. I'm just wondering what will happen next year. We've already offered to fly my daughter and her future husband out to join us as a wedding gift and then my brother's daughter that lives in Alaska posted on FB that she will be joining all of us next summer (she has a husband and child). I don't think all of us will fit next year, but I'm not going to think about that right now. I'd rather think about this: