The Marina

A long string of barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina, the Outer Banks are well known for  their sand dunes and hundreds of miles of gorgeous beaches.  The scenery is literally breathtaking and it's easy to see why it's such a popular tourist destination.   It was our first trip there and despite the mishaps and bad weather along the way, I daresay that it's become my favorite of all the Atlantic beaches we've ever been to. Not that I have anything against the Delaware and Virginia beaches that we usually go to, but with the clearer water, lighter beach traffic, and awesome city names like Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk, and Nags Head we are sold! 
 
Our last day in North Carolina, our friends took us to Oregon Inlet Marina, where we'd hoped to see the fishing boats arriving with their day's catch.  Unfortunately, the water had been too rough that day for the boats to go out, so we didn't actually get to see much in the way of fish.  We did, however, get to enjoy a walk on the marina, looking at the boats, laughing at some of their names, and enjoying the sights while we spent the last couple of hours with our friends before parting ways.

There may not have been much fishing going on, but we did get to see a couple of boats coming and going from the marina.  Glen mentioned that they were very similar to the fishing boats that he and Spencer went out on during their trip to Florida in June. 

Age proved to be no obstacle to Ellie and Gianna's friendship during the trip.  They may be two years apart in age, but they laughed and played and had a great time together. 

Albeit with a healthy dose of silliness... 


The marina wasn't sandy like the beaches, but Adam did find this very cool shell covered with barnacles.  We guessed that it was either an oyster or clam and opted to  throw it back in the water before leaving instead of adding it to their collection. 

We took advantage of having our friends there and had them take a family picture for us.  Unfortunately in order to get the best view of the boats in the background meant that we were staring right into the sun and true to form my eyes were closed in every single picture. 

Here is one final group shot with everyone (except the Moms and one of their kids who randomly decided not join the picture)....

After leaving the marina, we made one more stop at a beach before officially parting ways.  It was in Pea Island State Park and it was a much less crowded, more rustic beach than the others we'd been to.  It was stunningly beautiful and we loved the dunes and  empty expanses of sand.  

There were far more seashells there than the other beaches and each one of the kids ended up with a big handful to take home with them. 

It was too pretty there not to pose for pictures, so Cami had me take her a new Facebook profile pic. 

After that we said, "Goodbye," then stopped for a little treat at Sweet Frog (our first time)....

YUM!

and then drove up to Williamsburg for Part 2 of our vacation.  

Top Ten Reasons Why I Love Blogging

Most of you have only come to know this blog in the last several months since Spencer was diagnosed and successfully beat leukemia.  But did you know that I've been blogging on a very regular basis (at least a few posts each week) for over five years now?  Blogging had become such a part of my life, that when Spencer got sick that it just seemed natural that I would make the blog my way to keep people up-to-date with his journey.  It did its job keeping people informed and kept me sane in the process, but now that Spencer is better and life is as normal as life ever is in our house, I sometimes question why I continue to take the time to blog about the mundane moments of our lives when I could be doing other more productive things....like sleeping. 

Well in true Lara form, I've decided to gather all my reasons here into a blog post, mostly as a way to remind myself why blogging continues to be an important part of who I am and how I express myself. 

*************************

10-  It keeps our faraway family up-to-date on our day-to-day happenings.

9-  Although I've got a whole lot to learn still, I love capturing moments in our lives using photography.

8- It's free and doesn't make a mess. 

7- It gives me a built in place to brag about our family.

6-  I express myself a whole lot better in writing than I do verbally. 

5-  Although it tends to come off as a little quirky or goofy, I love thinking of new and creative ways to present what is admittedly mostly boring/every day  material about our family. 

4-   I love how it preserves the stories and the photos from our lives, however mundane they may be,  into an accessible place for the kids to look back on.   

3- It helps me feel connected to family and friends who read the blog. 

2-It gave me an easy way to keep people informed about Spencer and his battle against leukemia and it helped keep me sane in the process. 

And last but not least....

1- I am adamantly opposed to insomnia and will not stop blogging until I have successfully cured each and every one of my friends and family who suffer from it.       

******************************

And although this is supposed to be putting you to sleep right now, I hardly know how to blog without throwing in a few pictures....so here is a little glimpse of our vacation. 

First I'll show off how healthy/tan/filled-out/hairy Spencer is looking these days. 

He still doesn't like posing for pictures, but he didn't complain when I snapped some shots of him burying his friend Ryan up to his neck in sand. 


Here's a shot of my Hunny of almost 19-years,  who prides himself on being an awesome boogier!  

Ellie joined in the digging fun and Adam continued to search for seashells and sea creatures...

Ellie really, really, really wanted to be buried too....


but with storm clouds like this approaching, we decided it wasn't such a great idea....

Every day we were in the Outer Banks had passing rainstorms that came and went through the day...

Luckily our friends' beach house rental wasn't too far away, so an afternoon of Disney DVD's and popsicles seem to make up at least a little bit for getting rained out of the beach...

Don't worry....more insomnia cures vacation blogposts coming soon....

Rough Start....Getting Better

After getting a few pitying comments after the last post about how horrible our vacation must be, I decided that for posterity's sake, as much as for worried friends and relatives,  that I needed to do a little explaining.    We had had a minor household emergency arise the day before our scheduled departure, which led to a very long, hard day with high stress and little sleep.  When we finally got in the car to drive to the Outer Banks, NC, we were excited to put the stress behind us and enjoy the beachside campsite we'd reserved  for that night.  

But because of heavy traffic for most of the drive, we didn't get to our campsite until after dark, only to find that someone else had set up their tent in the spot we'd reserved.  We moved over to a less desirable spot and discovered that we'd forgotten our flashlights, which made setting up our tent in the dark all the more challenging. 

Finally the tent was up and we crashed. 

And a couple hours later our tent crashed.

  The wind blows pretty steadily there in the Outer Banks normally, but the combination of the gusting wind and heavy rain that night proved to be the undoing of our tent.   We ended up abandoning it in the middle of the night and trying to salvage the rest of our night's sleep in the van (not very successfully I might add).  Our 15+ year old tent ended up meeting its demise that night and was left in the campground trash, along with several other tents who had apparently also met their fate up against that wind. 

Since then we've been through two dud motels, spotty internet, bucketloads of rain, and two surly teenagers. 

BUT....

now we've found a much nicer place to sleep (for less money than the dud motels), the internet works great, a couple of kids are happily posing for my picture ideas, the sun is shining...

and it's looking to be a great vacation! 

 Lots more pictures to come....