Sunday, June 9, 2013

Outer Banks Family Reunion 2013

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!

 
Spencer and Paul
Everyone all bundled up on Day 1.
 
Day 2 was much warmer.
 
Two crabs on the beach!


  
He's actually laughing here!


Always the fisherman... except when he's busy chasing after Andrew.

Uncle Paul and Dad... right before catching a sting ray I believe?

The bathing beauties: Aunt Laura, Uncle Chuck and Aunt Julie.
Ah, Tim the beautiful merman.



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!
Patiently waiting for the fire to heat up.
Uncle Paul and Tim cooking some hot dogs!


 
Pop Fishin'

And Mike fishing... notice a pattern here?


Gram blowing bubbles...

... for ALL the kids! :)
Andrew and Zoey loved each other!






 


 
To be continued...

 




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