OBX Beach Trip

We're back! Back from a lovely trip to the Outer Banks with our friends the Blatchfords. We rented a beach house for the week, which was much more reasonable off-season and less than a hotel since we were splitting w/another family. While there, we enjoyed pretty much everything the OBX has to offer! And since we didn't go to the beach at all last year, we really enjoyed this trip and felt blessed to be able go and to enjoy time with friends along with lots of family time, too!

So what did we do, exactly? Let's see... we toured the aquarium; saw 4 lighthouses; climbed to the top of one; took an off-road tour of the wild horses; got a sunburn climbing the 100 ft. dunes in Jockey Ridge; drove through Rodanthe; took the ferry to Ocracoke; ate at Blackbeard's site; flew a kite for the first time since I was in Kindy; collected a few trash bags full of sea shells (thanks to Elizabeth); hunted sea crabs; "attempted" to build a sandcastle; listened to a riveting debate between two preschoolers on the merits of mermaids; loved Liam's favorite new word ("hot tub"); got to hold a very sweet and smilie baby; attempted to let the girls have a "sleepover" (which ended after lots of giggles, zero sleep, and Delanie informing us that Elizabeth was saying "potty words" lol); made tie-dye shirts, painted gnomes, beaded necklaces; ate lots of ice cream and delicious seafood; enjoyed watching Delanie and Elizabeth chase Liam around the house, giggling all the while; and watching Elizabeth and Delanie love on baby Dylan at Port-O-Call; will never forget letting Bella go off leash on the beach and watching her run at full speed down the shore while we chased her with our kite; or coming down stairs to find all the kids and Vassil on TOP of the bunkbed; we ate, we laughed, I believe the girls only had one fight; and in, in short, we had a GREAT time! Oh, and on top of all that, we enjoyed LOTS of time at the beach!

It was so funny, when we got home, Elizabeth was certain our carpet and door knobs had changed while we were gone. "Mommy, the carpet looks different! The doorknobs are different! I think someone must have vacuumed our carpet, it looks different!" she kept insisting--lol! Liam keeps insisting we return to the "beach house." And while playing in daddy's car one day, I overhead Elizabeth tell Liam they were driving back to "the mainland." Lol! OH, and despite the fact that the girls never officially slept in the same room together, Elizabeth has asked me over a dozen times if Delanie can come over for a "sleep over" lol!

Anyway, in lieu of importing pics one by one, I thought I'd attempt to add a slideshow of all our vacation pics, here. Hope this works! It has taken me forever and a day to upload--so enjoy! I know we really did!

Some beach video and lots of catching up... coming soon :)