Back in January, we started talking about a family vacation. Since Kimberly and Josh were taking a big two week vacation to Australia, they didn't have any more vacation time. Jeffrey and Madi wanted to join in, as did my parents. So, we knew that we all wanted to go on a vacation together, and we knew it needed to be sometime between April and August, but we didn't have any plans. We kicked around the idea of going on a cruise, but with all the Zika stuff, and the fact that Kevin and I were hoping to be pregnant by the summer, we decided that we should stay in the states. We then switched gears and began thinking about a beach house vacation. I have always wanted to go to the Outer Banks, North Carolina, and since Jeffrey and Madi could drive there from Pittsburgh, they were totally on board. Obviously, my parents would have to fly, but they were also on board. We spent one Saturday (literally, the whole day) trying to find the perfect beach rental, and we finally settled on a house called "A Pocket Full of Sunshine." It was significantly cheaper if we went before school got out, so we opted for the first week of May. Mom was willing to take time off from work, which made the whole plan fall into place.
Then we just had to wait a few months, but it was fun to look forward to something. Packing is always the worst part of vacation, but I got us all packed, and we were headed on our way. Colby was so adorable on the plane with Kevin. He loves the novelty of head phones, although he only sits still for like 5 minutes.
The flight was almost 3 hours long, and Colby was back and forth between Kevin and I the whole time. Brooke kept herself busy with some little paper dolls I bought her, and was totally easy the whole time. Once we landed, we went to pick up our rental car. They didn't have any cars ready, so we waited an hour. I know I sound totally impatient, but after being at the airport in Dallas for two house, taking a 3 hour flight, and then having to wait for a rental car, I was annoyed. The kids were hungry, and we still had an almost two hour drive to the place we were staying for the night.
But, we survived, left the airport, and Colby was asleep in about 5 minutes. We stopped at Chipotle for a late lunch, then made it to Nags Head, where we were staying for the night. We checked in, dropped our bags, then headed out to the beach. Brooke was so SO excited to be at the beach, which was so adorable.
Brooke was amazed at the shells that were EVERYWHERE, so I quickly found a ziplock bag in my backpack to hold her collection. When it was dark, we headed up to the hotel restaurant to get some food. I had the most amazing tomato bisque with toasted gruyere cheese and crusty bread. It was seriously delicious! The kids slept great (after such a long day), and even though Brooke fell out of the hotel bed, she never mentioned it the next day, so I think she was still sound asleep when it happened. It of course scared the heck out of me, but I quickly scooped her up and snuggled her in the other bed with me.
The next morning, we ate breakfast and headed towards the beach house!! On the way, we picked up our keys and some fun goodies at the management office.
The house was seriously beautiful, and had a color scheme I was totally crushing on...
We took this picture from the third floor balcony. What an incredible view! Each deck of the three story house had seating on both the east (the ocean side) and the west (the sound side) sides of the house.
I loved all the furnishings and accents in the house, and of course had to snap a few pics of the kids on our tour.
The bottom floor boasted a game room, a bedroom, and two bunk rooms. Brooke wanted to sleep on the top bunk of one of the bunkbeds, which surprised me because we were staying on the second floor (4 big bedrooms and a laundry room). I didn't think she would really want to sleep down there all by herself, but I guess she sleeps on a different floor than us at home, so it didn't seem weird to her. She has never slept on a bunk bed before, so we were nervous about her falling off. We found a pack and play in a closet, and used the bottom board from the bed to create a little wall so she couldn't fall off, haha.
After unloading all our stuff, we knew that we should head to the grocery store and get all the food we needed, but I wanted to get out to the beach and just take a break from duty. I also had coordinated our outfits for a family picture since I wanted to announce our pregnancy with this picture, and I just wanted that done before someone (the kids) spilled on themselves, haha. It was so incredibly nice to just walk out the door, down a short path, and be at the beach.
Brooke immediately started running towards the water, splashing, collecting shells, and laughing all the while. I was a little emotional as I heard the joy in her voice. This was exactly how I envisioned our vacation, and I felt at ease knowing that she was so happy here at the beach. Colby wanted to be held, but he wanted to touch the water as well.
The beach was pretty empty, but someone finally walked by and we were able to get them to take a picture. The beach was perfectly beautiful and mostly empty on a Saturday, which made me SO excited for the memories we would create over the next week.
Love these boys...
We made our way into town (about 20 minutes), ate at a delicious sandwich shop right next to the Food Lion (grocery store), then put our game faces on for the shopping. I had typed lists of all the groceries we needed, organized by category. I figured if I was organized, the shopping would go quickly and smoothly. We went in with two carts, and each had a list of things to get. We stayed semi-close to each other, but the store was super packed (with beach combers in bare feet, yuck!), and it ended up taking us almost 2 hours to get the shopping done. We were all a little frazzled as we made it to the check-out line. Once bagged, it took three carts to get all of our groceries out of the store, which was hilarious. I had to snap a picture to document the ordeal. Once everything was loaded in the car, and the kids were buckled in, I told Kevin that I had definitely earned one of the devil's food donuts we had just picked up.
Of course, the kids wanted in on that deliciousness, and they were both a mess by the time we were done, haha.
As we pulled back up to the house, I jumped out of the car to take a picture. Isn't that the perfect house?? So aptly named, as well, with it's yellow door, shutters, and adirondack chairs.
Unloading all those groceries to the third floor kitchen was a lot of work, but we finally felt like we were settled in and could wait for everyone to arrive so that we could start this vacation!!
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