Our First Family Vacation

Well, out first family vacation was a success!! The boys were VERY good on the way down for the 12 hours of driving. The boys and I slept for a lot of the time while Josh drove. It's always easier driving to vacation so he was very awake and got us there safe and sound! We left at about 2am so the boys were already mid sleep and continued to sleep until it was time to eat that morning.

The weather at the Outer Banks (we were in Duck, NC) was great. Hot every day and there were even a few days where the humidity was a little lower so it made it more bearable! We spent time at the beach and at the pool, looking around at all the neat little shops, going for dinner and lunch and just relaxing...as relaxing as vacation is with two little ones!! We quickly realized that vacation is not the same as when we were sans kids!! It was still SO much fun and so much fun to see the excitement on their faces experiencing the ocean for the first time! We went with our neighbors Cy & Sarah and their almost 4 month old little girl Isabella. We looked after each others kids one day so they could go on a lunch date just the two of them and then Josh and I got to go for a dinner date just the two of us. We had 3 hours of just being able to take our time eating a nice dinner and then went for ice cream and also stopping at a shop that does t-shirt screening (it seems you never find these places anymore) and got the boys each their first Outer Banks Hoodie's (which we forgot to take pictures of). It was a great evening. We took a few walks on the beach in the evenings when it was a little cooler which was a lot of fun except for the fact that our boys are getting pretty heavy and it's hard on our backs carrying them around these days!! We took a little drive to another part of the island called Corolla and went to a Light House that we could climb to the top of. It was so neat to be up there but the hike up the stairs was brutal!! I included a few pictures from the top. It was a pretty amazing view. Another day we decided to take a drive (which we thought would take us an hour at most) to another part of the island that was supposed to have very pristine beaches. Cy's dad found an article in a newspaper before we left Columbus that rated the beaches there better or equal to the beaches in Hawaii and Florida. The community that surrounds the beaches is protected against any new building so the towns were really quaint and neat! Well, the drive turned out to be HOURS!!! We left at 9am from Duck and didn't arrive there until 3pm!!! We did stop and have lunch and feed the babies which was probably an hour and a half to two hours. That included a 45 minute ferry ride over to the island. It was called Ocacroke Island. By the time we got there the boys were NOT happy!! The beach we went to was so beautiful but at that point it was so hot and the boys were so tired we decided to cut our loses and head back to Duck. It was kind of a wasted day but we were happy that we at least got to see the beach there and put our toes in the sand for a minute!!

Otherwise we hung out on our patio drinking some beers and one night we stayed in and Cy cooked us a pasta dinner. We went out and got ice cream almost every night (which would explain my weight gain while on vacation!!!)!! It was a great time. The boys really liked the water...especially Cohen. He would just go right in. Didn't have to get used to the temperature or anything. Ethan on the other hand was a little more cautious. He had to get a portion of his body in and get used to it for a bit before he would go any further. And if you tried to push it too fast he would cry!! :(Cohen loved sitting on the shore of the ocean and letting the waves go over his legs. He could have sat there for hours I think!!

On our way home home we stopped on Virginia to visit some family on Josh's side that hadn't met the boys yet. They made us a really yummy lunch and we had a really nice visit with them. We had no idea that we basically drove right by their house on the way to and from the Outer Banks and we have been going there for the past 3 years!! Now we know. Cohen and Ethan of course loved all the extra attention!!

So we left Duck at 6:30am and drove 3 - 4 hours to Virginia and then didn't get home to Columbus until 11:30pm!! We were all exhausted and the boys were not too happy. We ended up having to stop a lot more on the way home with them than on the way down so that made it just that much longer of a drive. We've all recovered now though and the boys are adjusting again to life back at home. Being back home is bitter sweet. I miss the ocean and wish we lived closer to it. It was really fun having our good friends/neighbors with us on this vacation. Since we all have small babies we were all in the same boat. All in all we had such a good time and I can't wait for our future family vacations to the beach. :)