OBX Vacation!

We are just back from the Outer Banks of NC! We had a wonderful trip. I didn't have great internet access out there, so I had to wait to get back to blog the details of our trip.... without further adieu...

Background....
So, several months ago, Jeff told me he really wanted to spend a week at the beach. Pretty much all our vacations have centered around Disney, family and a couple of cruises. His family vacations growing up were spent at the beach.

We decided on the Outer Banks. We've only been out to the Outer Banks one other time, about 4 years ago. We stayed in Manteo that time. But we wanted a true week at the beach vacation... I started looking for houses to rent directly from an owner.

After MUCH searching, I found a wonderful house in Kill Devil Hills. It was actually hard to find a direct rental, even using VRBO.com. Here is the house we found: Caribbean Dream

It's four bedrooms, 4.5 baths, 1.5 blocks from the ocean, a pool and a hottub, multiple decks, and fairly new. I was enamored with this house! And we got an amazing deal through the owner. Roughly $400=$500 off the rate through the rental agency! We started thinking of who we could take with us. Pretty early on, I decided this trip would be a lot more fun for all of us if we took another family with kids so Jacob would have a playmate.

We ended up asking our friends Kim & Steven, who have two sons - Sterner, almost 2.5, and Grayson, 9 months. Steven and I go way back. We were coworkers about 10 years ago. He met Kim the summer we worked together at a law firm in Wilmington, and she and I became great friends too. About four years ago, they moved to the Raleigh area. With the best of intentions, we've still only seen them a handful of times a year. We had just recently had a park/dinner "playdate" with them, and a few days later, I emailed them the house I'd found and asked them to join us. To my surprise, they responded enthusiastically within about two hours! We had been excited about the house, and now we were really excited to have such great friends going with us!

This trip was so much different than other vacations... which were mainly to FL... and mainly focused on family & Disney. After several months of waiting, but not nearly the planning that goes into a Disney trip... we left for the Outer Banks last Saturday!

Prior to our departure, I went to the Holly Springs Farmer's Market and bought some produce to take with us. We ended up leaving a little before 11 a.m. We stopped in Rocky Mount and had some lunch at the Cracker Barrel. We headed on. We could not check into the house until 4 pm so we stopped at the Outer Banks Visitor's Center near Manteo around 3 pm and hung out a while looking at brochures, etc. We got to the house about 3:30 p.m. Kim & Steven & the boys were already there waiting by the pool. They'd gotten into the gate, which wasn't locked. We all went into the house and got the cars unpacked. Wow at the stuff that four adults & three kids need for a week at the beach!!!

Next up was a trip to the liquor store and the Harris Teeter, which were fortunately only about a mile a way and right next door to each other. Both were very busy. The parking lot of the ABC store was so busy! Steven and I ran in while Jeff & Kim waited in the respective cars with the kids. The line was wrapped up and down two aisles! I grabbed what I needed and Steven offered just to wait in line for both of us and walk over to meet us at the HT.

We had loosely planned the first four days of meals... I had a list and a cart. Kim had a list and a cart. Then Steven came in and had his own cart. With Jeff manning the two older boys in the spaceship cart, we all zoomed around the HT gathering supplies! We finally met at the front and ended up totaling about $400 in groceries between 3 carts & two bills! We got back to the house and it had to be carried up to the third floor kitchen. Houses at the beach are often "upside down." The living areas, the kitchen and living room are on the third floor to take advantage of the ocean views.

As the time in the day was waning by the the time we got back from the grocery and unpacked the food, we decided to feed the boys and then have a later adult dinner. It worked well. We got all the boys into bed in the 7:30 to 8 p.m. time frame. (As an aside, that is J's typical bedtime and it was a coincidence and a blessing that Kim & Steven's boys go to bed at the same time!!)

Anyway, once they were all to bed, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner of grilled NY strip steaks, baked potatoes, and salad on the screened in porch. After dinner, we talked for a bit and then decided to reconvene in the hot tub. Oh yes. The hot tub was NICE!! It was actually a bit too hot. We jumped in and out and managed. We finally turned into bed about 11 p.m. A great start to the vacation....

On Sunday, we decided to hit the beach. The weather was looking precarious for the remainder of the week and we needed to take advantage of any decent beach days! After breakfast, Jeff, Jacob and I ran to the local Wings for a beach umbrella. Everything was 50% off, and even though it was cloudy, I was determined we needed one. :) We actually got a great deal on one for $12, and headed back to the house.
Finally, we headed out to the beach. Oh my, how much stuff we took! It was a bit cloudy and quite windy as well. The ocean was far too rough for swimming, but we'd known that in advance and had planned to let the boys play in the sand and to stick our toes in the surf occasionally, not venturing much past ankle depth. We stayed out maybe an hour and a half, but with the wind and lack of sun, it was a bit cold... so we headed back to the house. They had a good time playing in the sand. We got the boys showered & bathed, fed them lunch and put them down for naps. Jeff and I headed out to Austin's Seafood Company to buy some shrimp for dinner. We also made another trek to the Harris Teeter for MORE groceries! We got home and later, we had a wonderful "shrimp boil" with shrimp, corn on the cob, potatoes, sausage, etc. After we put the kids to bed, we hopped in the hot tub again!

On Monday, the weather was really looking not so hot. Rainy. Windy. Yuck. It was Kim's birthday and she made us a wonderful breakfast of pancakes, both chocolate chip & regular, as well as bacon. We weren't sure what we were going to do... but by about 10:30 a.m. we knew we needed to get the boys out of the house. So, we decided to take them bowling over in Nags Head. Why bowling you ask? Well, Jacob LOVES bowling... (and so does his dad! ) Jacob was really excited about bowling! With four adults & two kids playing, it took a LONG time to play even one game. But it was good. I actually did decent... I bowled two strikes and a few spares. I ended up losing to Jeff 116-114. Jacob bowled a respectable 82 I believe. Sterner bowled similar.... as a disclaimer, by the end, both boys were using one of those bowling ball slope roller things. Even Grayson got a few turns! Kim had herself a strike or two. Bless his heart, Steven was just not a bowler. He tried, but he did not excel at bowling. :) Or maybe he let Kim win because it was her birthday! :D

After bowling, we decided to go out to lunch. We decided on BBQ and checked out Pigman's BBQ. It was decent. Nothing to "write home about." I had Turkey-Q and Jeff had Pork BBQ, which was better than the too saucy Turkey-Q. The hushpuppies were good. And Jacob enjoyed the french fries. :) After lunch, the kids were sort of rowdy, so we headed home for naps! I think we ALL took naps that day! The post-nap plan for dinner was a Labor Day cook-out with grilled hot dogs, hamburgers, homemade pasta salad, homemade slaw and some MEAN baked beans with ground beef, bacon, etc. in them that could be a meal in and of themselves! We had a great dinner with the entire gang. After dinner, Steven brought out a Carvel ice cream cake with candles in the shape of a "32" for Kim's birthday. We all enjoyed some ice cream cake and sent the boys off to bed.

Unfortunately, that night, it was too rainy for the hot tub...

More to come! Including pics!!