Outer Banks

The day after Andrea’s wedding, we drove down to the Outer Banks for a week’s vacation with some of our college friends. We rented one of those big houses and just spent the week relaxing. It was glorious.

The first evening, we flew a kite on the beach as the sun set. It was one of those times you look around and find yourself in awe of the world – great friends, beautiful scenery and absolutely nothing else in the world to be doing.

The first night, we also celebrated the boys’ winning soccer season. They’re all on the same rec team and won the league championship the day before!

We spent a lot of time on the beach. The water was so clear and so calm.

I found some sand toys in one of the closets at the house, so I brought them down to the beach one day to make a castle.

Our house had a pool (and a hot tub!) too, so we swapped over to that when the beach got too hot.

My other favorite part of the house was the 4th floor reading nook. It had two walls of windows looking out over the beach. I think we all took turns laying in that chair reading.

Tuesday night was my birthday so we all went out to dinner at a Mexican place I picked. The food was awesome. And the birthday surprise was that the waiter brought out a sombrero and ice cream sundae for me. It was a blast.

Afterwards, we went back to the house and played Bezzerwizzer – my birthday gift from Mark. It turned out to be a crowd favorite. We played it every night until we left!

There were also beach game. Football.

And ladderball. I defended my streak and won again!

We played mini golf one night. I did embarrassingly bad.  Mark did well, though.

Our last day there, the crowd went tubing. Mark and I didn’t go, but we helped shuttle everyone up there. It was a gorgeous spot on the bay.

We did a little shopping instead. Mark’s been reading again since he’s free from CFA studying for the summer so we both had a good time browsing the book store.

We also ended up with a bunch of other goodies: a new cookbook, a sweatshirt, a pillow for the hammock and another Christmas ornament for the tree.

It was such a relaxing week!