OBX

After two more-arduous-than-expected days of travel, we have arrived and settled in to Vacation Number Three:  The Big Beach House.  The ocean is lovely and the Sound is lovelier still and it is wonderful to be with family (what a joyous, cousin-full summer it has been for our little ones!)-- but you guys-- I think I may be vacationed out. I am. so. tired.  I feel like I've got very few reserves left for "cruise directing" and organizing and creating a dynamic and amazing and utterly memorable trip for all involved.  Luckily, the benefit to this houseful of people is-- there are others to take up the slack! In spite of my lack of planning and drive, we've had delicious family dinners, rousing card games, poolside lounging, and relaxing cups of coffee on the porch with terrific people we don't see often enough. We're making do.  And thank heavens for same-age cousins.  Jack and Ivy are inseparable from Gavin and Ada and they are getting along swimmingly, as it it had not been two years since we were all together last. They have been brave in the waves and independent around the house and oh how they LOVE the pool in the backyard! The one person more tired than me may be Corydon, who has found her first foray to the ocean to be exhilarating, exhausting, and salty.  She can't seem to stop drinking water as she swims (she's a lake dog!) and then she comes out of the water with a distasteful expressions and rolls in the sand to get rid of the salt.  She's not so smart.  But she's really really soft from all this exfoliation, I tell ya.

But!  With no further ado, a photo tour of the first few days on the Outer Banks.

Hitting the road...

These kids are awesome travelers. Ivy was nonstop entertainment.

 Hardly knew Jack was back there, so independent and quiet and content.  Of course he had unlimited screen access so he was in heaven. I love the dog curled up next to him...

 I would not recommend the suburb of Glen Allen as a place to stop near Richmond.  But at least there was a cute little diner next to our subpar hotel, so we made the best of it.

 We stopped to see the city of Norfolk and visit the Hunter House museum, as we had not one but two historic house addicts in the car...

 Nat took the kids to see a cute waterfront park while my mom and I toured the house.

We certainly enjoyed our stop in Norfolk but if we had known the consequence of traveling out to OBX later in the day... we would have left our hotel at 5am and gone straight there.  What was forecast to be a 3 hour drive was over 6 hours in total and was a miserable experience for the last 40 miles of stop-and-go traffic with no other routes to try...  Ugh.

We ended up taking a pit stop in Duck, a mere 15 miles from our destination because we'd been in the car for 4 and a half hours, thinking every minute that we'd be there soon, it had to get better...

The view of the sound plus a little ice cream kept us going...

 And we made it!  Just in time for more ice cream...

 .. and Corydon's first walk in the ocean...

 ... and swimming with cousins...

 ... and more swimming by night...

The horrors of travel fade pretty quickly in the sound of the surf and happy kids playing.

Day One at the House (Sunday):

TONS of pool time. The new dolphin floatie has been both a huge hit and an object of contention.  I almost talked poor Ivy out of getting the dolphin, knowing that she would fall off of it constantly.  But NO!  I never was allowed to get the Orca floatie that I wanted as a kid, dammit. So I let my daughter have the silly dolphin.

  

Morning beach time! We went back at 4, too.  We fried ourselves.  Jack and Nat have sandburn from all the body surfing.  I waded and kept the dog company, which works for me as I have reached the stage in life when I can categorically say that I don't like swimming in salt water, and so I don't do it.   Happy, salty, sandy family.

The young cousin set managed to net two small fish and a baby jellyfish. Impressive.

We ventured out to explore historic Corolla, which is three blocks big, and absurdly cute once you get out of the car and walk around...

Currituck Lighthouse.

  Whalehead house porch.  Can't wait to tour it inside later this week.

 Arts and crafts back at the house.

Nice to have a qualified art teacher in the house! We love Megan!

 Sunset over Currituck Sound.

This is Jesus the Egret.  He walks on water.

Gram got a motorcycle ride home on the Harley Joe rented for the week.

 Cousin snuggles before bed...

Henderson tradition-- card games into the night.  Pictured here:  Nine player Hearts.

You know what's good for the soul?  Putting together one's best pictures and looking at them and writing about them.  All the golden moments, gathered in one place to remind you that, despite a lackluster and housebound afternoon and a heft dose of super-tired, vacation IS off to a pretty damn good start....

Day Two highlights (aside from being housebound with a cranky Ivy for the afternoon,...)

Up at 5:20 to walk to the beach for sunrise.  A nice chance to talk with Heidi and Paige.  They're so wonderful.  I can only dream of having such a wonderful relationship with my daughter when she is 16.  Nice to have such inspiring family..

Sunrises are never quite as glorious as one expects.  But there is magic in being the first ones out and enjoying the day...

Went for a quick 5 mile run, a swim in the pool, had coffee with my honey and went to the grocery store.  Thereafter, the day had a disjointed quality... tried to go to the beach, had to stay home with a tired girl.  Tried to organize the schedule for the week, realized it is impossible to do so with 19 people in a house.  Tried to get some work done, at precisely the moment people can BACK to the house.   I have a hard time getting my vacation groove on.

Redeemed the day with a walk on the off-road beaches with my lovely sister.  Pretty cool out there, an empty beach, desolate banks, wild green scrub as far as the eye can see.  Would have been utterly peaceful if not for the gazillion 4x4 vehicles zooming by across the beach... Theoretically there are 100 wild Spanish Mustangs out here, but we didn't get far enough to sight any (though we did see some poop!)

Rejoined Nat and the kids for the last bits of the great crabbing adventure (inspired by seeing some guys doing this on the docks during our Day One adventure, and realizing that their sophisticated setup (string and raw chicken and a net) could be pretty easily replicated...) While Jack summed it up as "We have been here for two hours doing pretty much nothing..." he also said he would do it again. They did get two little crabs!  No keepers, thankfully, as we have NO idea how to cook them...

Kids are in bed (mostly asleep before I left the room!) and Day Two game night is underway.  A smaller, more sedate group than  last night.  Perhaps we all overdid it on Day One?

Goodnight and godspeed from me and this little tiny crab,