As kids, we were fortunate to
go on wonderful family vacations every summer. Some of our favorite trips were
to the Outer Banks in North Carolina -with the entire Elston clan. As if the
secluded sandy beaches, wildlife and beautiful sunsets weren't enough, we got
to spend a full week with aunts, uncles and cousins that lived across
Pennsylvania. Now, our family has spread out across the country, representing
PA, NC, GA, FL, and of course CA. That distance, in addition to it being about
10 years since our last family trip to OBX made me decide to begin planting the
seeds of a reunion. After getting everyone on board with the idea, I
strategically handed over the actual work and planning of the trip to the
person who does it best - my mom. And, boy was that a good move. She outdid
herself this year, and found the best house we've had yet. Here's the link to
the Sea Monkey, Salvo NC: http://www.outerbeaches.com/OuterBanks/VacationRentals/Salvo/Details/SeaMonkey/
The oceanfront house was complete with
a pool, hot tub, elevator, 7 master bedrooms, 2 half baths, a game room,
library and a gourmet kitchen. It was by far our most high end house yet!
It was a good thing we had such a
gorgeous house to relax in all week, because we had quite the travels to get
there! Mike, Andrew and I left home on Friday evening and headed to San Jose to
stay at the La Quinta San Jose Airport hotel, because we had a 6:20am flight
and the hotel did free parking and shuttle with an overnight stay. (It was a
very nice hotel for the deal, so if anyone else ever needs this type of thing,
I would highly recommend it - they even gave us "breakfast to go
bags" because we were leaving before their free continental breakfast.)
Our flight left San Jose on time and landed in Dallas Ft. Worth 3.5 hours
later, giving us an hour and a half to kill before our connecting flight to
Norfolk. Luckily, Dallas has a very nice kids play area which Andrew explored
while Mike and I took turns getting some lunch. We arrived in Norfolk 3 hours
later, but had to taxi forever and sat waiting for someone else to get out of
our bay before we could unload. When we finally left the airport, we headed to
the garage to find Aunt Amanda's car... she had left it earlier that morning in
Short Term Parking and hitched a ride the rest of the way to NC with my
parents. Finally, the last leg of the journey was to drive the 2 hours to
Salvo, NC... which luckily, Andrew slept much of the way through. Andrew really
did a great job the whole day and took decent naps on both flights. My bag of
surprise goodies definitely came in handy - he got a toy tractor, a new book,
and we had lots of snacks!
Once we FINALLY made it there, it was
all worth it...
This was our first trip down south in
the banks, and I think we were all impressed with just how peaceful and nice
the beaches were... maybe everyone but Andrew. Poor Andrew never made it more
than 30 minutes at the beach before wanting to go back to the house. Andrew's
ideal day would have been to spend most of it going up and down in the elevator
with Pop or Gram, and the rest napping or eating with a trip to the beach at
night. He just was not loving the sun, wind and sand as much as he does on the
West Coast... I think the heat (which by no means was too hot) and the sunscreen
was what pushed him over. He is used to being here on beaches where we wear
sweatshirts because of the wind, and have lots of cliffs and rock formations to
find shade under. Funny though, when I started going through pics, I found a
ton where it looks like Andrew is having a blast!
The first day was a little California-esque. Check out Andrew and Zoey's wind blown do's!
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Everyone all bundled up on Day 1.
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He's
actually laughing here!
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Always
the fisherman... except when he's busy chasing after Andrew.
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Uncle
Paul and Dad... right before catching a sting ray I believe?
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The
bathing beauties: Aunt Laura, Uncle Chuck and Aunt Julie.
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Ah,
Tim the beautiful merman.
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The beach at night was much more
Andrew's thing, so we headed down for walks after dinner and one night even
had dinner there! Apparently, fires are allowed with a permit in NC - and even better, permits are
free! We have Paul and Des to thank for securing the permit for us!
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Patiently
waiting for the fire to heat up.
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Uncle
Paul and Tim cooking some hot dogs!
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And
Mike fishing... notice a pattern here?
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Andrew
and Zoey loved each other!
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To be continued...
