Outer Banks Fishing

Over the Memorial Day weekend Bradley and I went to the Outer Banks with Chad and Jamie to camp and fish. We had beautiful weather, and quite a bit of good luck when it came to fishing. Both Chad and Jamie caught a big one and Bradley and I were able to reel in a ton of small bait fish. It was the first time for me to go out to Davis Island and I think I'll definitely go back.


Here is Jamie holding up the big fish that she caught.


Unfortunately there are a lot of stingray-like creatures called skates and poor Bradley hooked two really large ones. Here is Bradley fighting the first of the two that he hooked. These creatures were huge. Chad and Bradley said that the second one that Bradley hooked was as big as a car's hood! Crazy!

Chad and Jamie are looking on as Bradley fights the skate.

Here is Chad reeling in the large fish that he caught. It ended up being a Red Drum, which is the kind of fish that most people try to catch at the Outer Banks. Bradley had to get in the surf to help once the fish was close to the shore. It's amazing how much strength these creatures have, especially when they fight as hard as they do to stay in the water!

Chad, Bradley and Chad's cousin, Cory, are weighing Chad's fish. It was appoximately 25 pounds.

Chad proudly displaying his catch. It was 43.5 inches long and 25 inches in girth. Bradley and Chad have been fishing together at the Outer Banks for over 15 years, and this was by far the biggest that Chad has ever caught there! I was really excited to be there for the big catch!

Building a Fence

We are putting up a fence around our backyard but it's been quite a task! Bradley has enlisted some help in Everett and Chad. Thanks for helping you guys! Baxter will love the backyard!


I've never seen a better looking fence than this one! :)

Our 2 Little Visitors

Whoever said that living in the country was boring never lived in Coats. Last weekend Bradley and I had 2 little visitors walk up to our house. These 2 baby goats hung around for about 30 minutes before wandering off again. They decided to explore what was up on our back deck and eat a lot of the underbrush in our backyard before moving on to explore elsewhere.


They were so cute...but I'd never want any as a pet! They eat everything!! I am still laughing that this even happened. I never thought that I'd live in a place where goats wander up to my backyard.

The Latest Camping Experience

Oh, this picture makes me laugh. But, in all reality...we had SO much fun. Bradley's parents have this pop up camper (which hasn't been used in YEARS). We decided to try it out on our latest camping trip. And it was really fun...especially when there was a 2 hour thunderstorm on the 2nd night that we were there. If we'd been in our tent, we would not have been nearly as comfortable!! This may be the future of camping for us...I'll bet in 50 years we'll have another picture that looks just like this...:)


Bradley was not very amused that I was taking pictures of him setting up the pop up camper at 9:30 at night. But I was just so excited to be there and wanted to capture the moment forever. Thanks for being a good sport Bradley! :)

Tomlinson Family Vacation

In April, Bradley and I went to the Caribbean for a vacation with my family. We all had a blast! This picture was taken at the pier in San Juan, Puerto Rico on our first night together.


Bradley and I in San Juan, Puerto Rico.



The next morning we had several hours to kill before we got on board the cruise ship. So we went to a really cool fort and on the way we passed by a park where people were flying kites. The weather was really windy, so we bought a couple of kites too and decided to sit back and have some fun. Here is Bradley helping Jake (and Charlie is looking on) fly a kite.



This is a picture of our cruise ship from a bridge in a city that we visited. It was enormous! It held almost 4000 passengers and another 1200 crew members. That's over twice the population of Coats!! :)


One of the cities that we visited was on the island of Curacao. Curacao is about 40 miles north of Venezuala. We decided to rent a dune buggy while on the island. We drove around for a few hours looking at some beautiful beaches and historical sites before going back on board the ship.


This is one of the forts that we visited on Curacao. It's so neat to be in a place with that kind of history.


The cruise ship had many kinds of activities that we could do. We were never bored!! There was a small ice skating rink on board ship and one day Bradley and Angy took Jake ice skating. They all had a blast!


One morning Angy and I were hanging out with Jake and Charlie while everyone else went to explore activities on the ship. As soon as we stepped foot in my stateroom, the boys wanted to play with our masks and snorkels. Before we knew it they had the masks on their faces and snorkels in their mouths. Oh well...what are you gonna do?


Charlie, of course, did everything that Jake did. It must be so fun having an older brother that can show you all kinds of trouble to get into. :)


I had to include the next few pictures...Bradley and I had a BLAST hanging out with Jake and Charlie. Every night we all dressed up for dinner in the dining room. We had amazing food and they'd really serve us anything that we wanted! Here is Charlie one night at dinner. He looked so precious in his little sweater vest.


And here is Jake that same night at dinner. Doesn't he look SO handsome in his shirt and tie??!!


Unfortunately, it took me about 10 minutes to get this picture. As soon as Angy raised the camera to take the photo, Bradley stuffed food in his mouth, hoping to avoid having his picture taken. Little did he know that Angy and I would wait until he was finished so that we could get this pic.


Several years ago, Bradley enrolled me in a SCUBA class to get certified. This, by far, was something that I never in a million years thought that I'd be doing in my life...breathing underwater where there are all kinds of crazy animal life swimming around you. Well, it's now something that I've come to LOVE. Bradley and I can never go to a tropical place, without diving at least once. This week of vacation, we were fortunate enough to be able to go twice. Once in Aruba and once in St. Maarten. It is such an amazing thing to do!! This is a picture of a barracuda that we saw.



In St. Maarten, one of the dive sites that we went to was a place called Shark Hotel. It is a place where some of the dive shops go to feed the sharks while doing a dive. Well, we certainly were not feeding the sharks (I doubt I'll ever be brave enough to do that) but we dove at this site and while we were there, we saw this amazing reef shark.


Bradley in all his SCUBA gear.


Well, this certainly is not one of my favorite pictures (my hair is caught in my mask and my mouth seems to be bigger than my head), but it's the only one that I have of us diving together.


When we were diving in Aruba, they took us to a place where there was a sunken airplane. A lot of times different groups will purposely sink an object so that underwater plantlife and animals will grow and live around it. It ends up being a really cool place to dive and look around too.


Bradley happened to capture this picture of me. I think he was probably about 10 feet above me at the time. The water clarity is so amazing in the Caribbean!!


This is the harbor in St. Thomas. This picture was taken from our balconey. Everyday I was more and more amazed at the beauty of the Caribbean.

When we were in St. Thomas, the entire fam went to Coral World and to the beach. Here, the boys are playing together at the beach.

Here's a picture that my sister captured of us at the beach.