We woke up and quickly left our hotel this morning.
I figured since we were staying in a hotel that didn’t quite meet our expectations, what was the harm in letting the kids drink from a pop bottle at 7:30 in the morning? Zach was thrilled, “I always wanted to do this”! Remember my “Say yes more often” goal I set for this vacation?? I lived up to it. Soft drinks at 7:30 am – from the bottle no less. Of course they all wanted their picture taken to prove they had done it!
We headed over to Walmart to pick up some stuff. The kids had some gift cards from Aunt Judy and Uncle Jamie from all their past birthdays – and they saved them for here. They each bought a book or video. We were pretty excited to be so close to our final destination, so the ride was pretty easy and I forced the kids to absorb the scenery. We made a couple of stops; Zandra was playing hairdresser:
I was so excited to go over the bridge to the Outerbanks for my dream beach vacation and kept pointing out how beautiful it is!
We headed north to Duck and did a drive by our home “Bayley’s Light” (it wasn’t ready yet). We were very happy with what we saw! We continued heading up north, marvelling at the giant beach homes. Most of these giant ones fit between 20-30 people and rent out between $15000-25000 per WEEK!! I told the kids when we were all old and they were married, with kids, maybe we could come back and rent one of those big houses together and have a family reunion. Josh asked me if I could send him an email to remind him and give him all the details! LOL. That kid is so funny!! I told him we would probably talk before then and around then too! He said he still wants an email so he won’t forget.
We did some groceries, and then found a little fish place for lunch: Dockside N Duck. We had the guys steam and season up some shrimp and crab and feasted on a picnic table outside. THAT is what we came here for! The kids loved it!
Our house wasn’t ready yet, so we just hung out and watched Magnum PI in the car until we got the all clear to go in! We finally went in and everyone explored, selected their rooms (only minor altercations) and were bursting with excitement. We love it!
We walked the short path over the sand dune to the beach and went running into the ocean. The beach is amazing and we have our own spot in front of our house all to ourselves. The beach stretches for miles and miles each way. The water was really cold – but we were really hot so no one minded, and everyone had fun body surfing and collecting shells. Pretty darn close to my dream of just frolicking in the ocean with my hubby and kidlets…. Unfortunately, I had to head back to wait for groceries, so Rob hung out on the beach with the kids.
After beach time, we relaxed a bit reading, napping, tossing the football, and playing some baseball. Dinner was a bit interesting as we were prepared to grill, but the BBQ had no propane. Rob managed to make some yummy tilapia, tuna and crab cakes on the stove top anyway. Just at the end of dinner, Sam had his sick sense that a storm was brewing. We had planned on heading to the beach with some sparklers that Rob had picked up, but Sam was right and a HUGE thunder and lightning storm moved in. Pretty amazing. All the kids were freaked out though. We piled into our bed which faces the ocean to watch the lightning show. Man, were the kids freaked! I caught them off guard taking this picture in the dark. I told them to turn around and then took it – the flash got them pretty bad!!:
We then played a bit of “flashlight hide n seek” (since we couldn’t go to the beach with the flashlights) but had to stop shortly after because the kids were too freaked out with the storm! Sort of nice, because it still shows that they are all just our little babies after all:) They are watching a bit of TV now (or most of them are…some have crashed already!):
All in all, it was a great day! After the beach, when Zandra was showering in the outdoor shower (there are two of them!), she said to Rob, “We have to come back here again – exactly here”. Pretty good considering we’ve only been here a few hours.
I’ll be sure to send them all an email to give them the details of when we will be back!!
