Vacation Week 2: OBX

The second half of our vacation was spent with Luke's side of the family and we spent our whole week at the Outer Banks in North Carolina. That first Saturday morning we had to take off real early from Luke's parents house in Virginia- we didn't get much sleep that night anyway since the boys stole our bed.

My biggest fear of the trip was the 6-7ish hour drive down to the beach. But the boys did great! Jacob kept himself entertained with all his new toys and coloring books, and Blake and Jacob seemed to rotate naps. We did end up hitting a load of traffic especially once we got closer to the beach, so the boys were definitely ready to get out of the car once we got there.

And so once we got settled in our condo (which overlooked the beach!), we immediately hit the sand. Jacob practically ran he was so excited to go to the beach- this is what he's literally been waiting for all year!

Jacob was so excited to play in the sand and run through the water! Blake enjoyed playing in (and eating) the sand too.

Even once we were done on the beach, Jacob would always want to look at the water and the birds and so on. We did have the perfect view and set up though! At night we had the most beautiful shots of the moon reflecting on the ocean too.
On Sunday we went to one hour of church, which was packed with visitors. Here are the boys in their church clothes.

Then later Sunday, we walked the docks where the boats come in and we could check out all their fish.

Jacob got to hold a fish too and he was so excited about that. All he wanted to do the rest of the trip was hold more fish.

Luke had his picture taken on this boat when he was really young and caught fish, so we took a tribute picture of him in front of this same boat. (This is Luke below).

 

Later that night we walked down to the beach and flew a few kites and Jacob got to try for the first time.

 

Then Monday was probably our best beach day. Nice, sunny, and hot!

 

Jacob got a bit annoyed with the sand so before going in for lunch and at the end of the days, we'd always have to take a swim in the pool first. If it were up to Jacob he'd just go to the pool everyday. Luckily Luke and I were able to get some alone beach time without the kids that day too.

 

 

 

Unfortunately we had cloudy/rainy weather on and off the rest of this week too so on Tuesday we checked out one of the lighthouses and walked around.

 

 

We didn't pay to go to the top of the lighthouse so we just made sure to take pictures in front of it, the boys really didn't care.

 

 

There was a great little gift shop there though where we got a couple things and walked around a bit more.

 

Jacob liked watching all these people try to catch crabs too.

 

 

Thank goodness for technology on those rainy nights, haha ;)

 

 

Wednesday was cloudy but we still hung out at the beach and played a little ball.

 

 

 

 

I don't care much for being on the beach unless it's sunny, so I didn't mind taking Blake back up to the house for his lunch and naps. Such a crazy boy, too bad he was also dealing with bronchitis, fevers, and teething!

 

 

 

Tons of hermit crabs were out and Jacob got to catch a few, and hold a jellyfish Christian found, which was really neat!

 

Blake liked dipping his feet and hands into the ocean too

John cooked crabs one night.

The boys made cute tie dye shirts.

Wednesday night we went shopping and got some ice cream.

Finally Thursday the sun came out again! Here are the 4 older boys back out in the water.

I was so glad the sun was finally out I didn't want to take the boys back in for naps, so they both fell asleep on the beach. I know Blake looks a little silly, but swaddling him is still the only way I can keep him asleep, and I just covered him up a bit so the sand wouldn't kick in his face. Worked out great.

Thursday was also Andrew's 6th birthday, so we had a little party for him and then we went to the go-cart track. Jacob was really excited and he had a fun ride with dad! 

We all got to ride at the same time while Brenda watched with the three babies.

Then afterwards we got some Rita's, yum!

Friday was our last day on the beach!

We also did a little shopping, Luke and I each got some new shoes, and Luke got this free hat to go with it.

I took Jacob to play on the playground, and went for a quick swim in the pool before heading back down to the beach.

I had to practically beg Jacob to come back to the beach, since he just wanted to stay at the pool. But I'm so glad we did since all the boys were out fishing and Luke helped Jacob catch a few!

He was so excited to hold more fish- he seemed to just like squeezing them though, haha.

All the boys together caught tons of fish, but in the end we put them all back.

Friday was our last night so we finally made it up to the dunes with the intention of flying kites. Here was the view from the top.

It was extremely windy and started to rain for a few minutes but it was better once we ran down the hill- and then Jacob and the boys ran up and down several more times.

Finally the weather got nice enough to start flying some kites and they all had a good time trying out tricks with those fancy kites.

I just watched with Blake :)

 Then that was it at the beach! Saturday morning just Luke, I and the kids took off at 5:30am. We followed these vans most of the way- OBX 1 and OBX 2. We basically named ourselves OBX 3. We lost them once we finally stopped for breakfast more than halfway home, but once we got back on the road OBX 2 passed us, so we followed their trail again- it was actually pretty funny and they probably thought we were crazy.

Before getting to Maryland to visit my family for one more day, we stopped by Luke's grandma's to see her and Aunt Julie, and made it to their house by about 10:45am! The boys slept almost the whole way, and we had zero traffic, way better time than driving there.

But we had a good visit with them and saw all Luke's family again on Sunday at church and had a nice lunch before we all flew home.

The two+ weeks did go by fast but we felt we had a good amount of time with each of our families which was all that mattered. We were all sad to say goodbye to everyone but we were glad to finally make it home. Yay for such a fun double vacation!