This summer, the five of us took our first ever family vacation. We are very blessed to have an extended family that we love. Most of our vacations are spent with them, usually travelling to New Hampshire or Indiana, and we love it. But we've been talking for years about having a beach vacation, and this year we finally made it happen! We rented a house in Duck, North Carolina, which is in the Outer Banks. The house had a pool, and we were about 4 houses from the beach. The house, the town, the weather...everything was fantastic. The only small struggles were travel (we had both rain and traffic to make a long drive longer) and trying to keep the red-heads from getting sunburned. (By the last 2 days, Hannah's skin was sensitive and irritated from constantly applying sunscreen.)
Plenty of ice cream was consumed:
The famous "Duck Doughnuts" - you custom order, watch them being made, and eat them warm and fresh!
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| we waited too long to try our kite and didn't have enough wind to fly it. maybe next time. |
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| movie night |
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| walking into town |
Putt-putt
The pool
The beach
The first day or two were more windy. There was a steep drop-off in the water, and the waves were pretty strong. After that, it was much calmer. There was also a sand bar that shifted closer to shore. We were able to swim past the drop-off then be in very shallow water. Micah loved boogie-boarding on the sand bar, and I would usually go with him. Matthew didn't go out to the sand bar to boogie-board until the last day. But then he loved it so much that he didn't want to stop.
The kids and I got up early one morning to watch the sunrise.
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| we also saw ghost crabs... |
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| ...and dophins |
First family vacation in the books. Can't wait to do it again.
