THE Beach Trip

Where to begin? We had all been super excited for our family trip to the OBX at the end of August. Paul and I were long overdue for a vacation and we were really looking forward to seeing the boys have a blast at the beach this year. Mission accomplished.... for the most part :-)

We headed down on a Sunday, car jam packed, with Auntie G along for the ride. (I sat in the back between the two car seats and tried to occupy a 3 year old and a 16 month old for 7 hours. Awesome.) We knew Hurricane Earl was churning out there in the Atlantic but we were hoping it would take more of a north-easterly path and miss the Outer Banks.

Monday and Tuesday were GORGEOUS! Bright blue skies, not a cloud in sight, hot, perfect beach and pool weather. Paul, Gretch, and I did a great job of working on our tans. The boys had a great time playing in the ocean and building sand castles with Daddy and Pa. We had a hard time getting Jake OUT of the ocean numerous times (he likes the ocean better than the pool -- go figure).

That's about when it all started to go downhill... My sore throat had started on Monday night but got worse through the day on Tuesday to the point where I slept from about 3pm-7pm on Tuesday. Thinking maybe it was just a cold coming on, went to sleep it off that night. Woke on Wednesday morning in agony and wimpered for Paul to take me to the urgent care center. Jake had also developed a pretty high fever by this time so we took him along with us so we could both get tested for strep. Almost an HOUR drive later, and a THREE hour wait at the urgent care center, and my strep test came back positive in about 45 seconds. (I could have told them that.) The doctor actually did look at me very sympathetically because in her words, my throat looked like raw red meat, and she could tell that I was miserable. Antibiotics in hand (for me and Jake), we drove an HOUR back to the beach house and I promptly went to sleep for the rest of the day. Ugh.

At this point, the path of Hurricane Earl was still pretty uncertain. They had only evacuated part of the Outer Banks near and including Cape Hatteras. We thought being in the northern part of the OBX (Corolla) would spare us. But when we went to bed that night, we knew we were dealing with 50/50 odds of staying. Paul's dad woke me up at about 7am on Thursday to tell me it was too close to call and we needed to pack up and head out. They had started to evacuate other parts of the island including Nags Head and Kitty Hawk which wasn't too far south of us. By 9:30am, we were packed, house was cleaned, and we were on our way out -- much to all of our dismay (but pretty impressive amount of time to pack up all of the people and stuff we had at the house AND clean it). At that point we found out that a mandatory evacuation had just been ordered for our part of the island. Upside? We got out of there before everyone else did and only had to sit in minimal traffic! (It's the little things....)

Back at home, we enjoyed our 4 day STAYcation at the pool, having taco and Monopoly night with friends and family, attending a neighborhood birthday party and BBQ (complete with moon bounce), with a hike in the battlefields, a trip to the National Zoo, some more pool time, and a BBQ at my parent's house with Nick and crew.

Back to work and school came too soon, but we were excited for the boys to start their first day in their new classrooms. Josh moved from Older Infants to Toddler (where he will be until he turns 2) and Jake moved from Preschool I (2's room) to Preschool II (3's room). Next year he we will be JK (Junior Kindergarten -- 4's) and then he starts kindergarten! Hard to believe. It's one thing to picture yourself as the mom of an infant or toddler but school aged is a completely different notion! They both love their new rooms and teachers and friends :-)

Slideshow below of pictures from the beach, our staycation, and some randoms of our neighborhood as shot from the neighborhood pool.

Now to plan for another vacation that might last longer than two whole days!! .....