Fall Break and Outer Banks, NC

Every year the LDS Law Society has a tradition of renting out a beach house for fall break every year. It is usually in Outer Banks, NC. We had the time to spare this year so we headed out to join the fun. This year there were 13 families. Some of them I knew before we got out there and some I developed great friendships with over the week.

This was our house

We did everything from playing party games at night to playing at the beach...

AJ did not like the water

But he did like the sand, as long as none of it was touching him...

The boys enjoyed a game of sand football.

We took the time to go to the beach even on a stormy day. We didn't play in the water much, but we did enjoy the nice packable sand for building sculptures.

This was my first quick one made for a little guy there. He wanted me to make baby turtles too, but he stepped on all of them before I could get a picture. 

AJ became a "mer-man" while we worked on our biggest sculpture. Secretly this was just to keep AJ from destroying our hard work. 

We got to work

The final project. Lightning McQueen from Cars. I think we did a pretty good job. 

The artistic team.

AJ got to fly his first kite while at the beach. Joe was such a gem to wake up early with AJ one morning and let me sleep in. He headed out to the beach with a few other early risers and enjoyed the gloomy morning flying kites and enjoying the waves.

As soon as I woke up I joined them.

We even got to do a bon fire one night. It was super cold out so the fire felt nice. We made s'mores and had some hot chocolate. Then after a cold walk home we jumped into the hot tub.

We soon were visited by this fellow. He tried to scare us, but it didn't work. 

The boys wanted to freeze their brains out and jump into the pool.

Each family was put in charge of one meal so we didn't have to worry about bringing our whole food storage with us. It was great to only worry about the one meal and only have to do dishes for one meal.

All the little ones loved meal time because they could all get together to play. All the kids Aj's age would swarm together to play ring around the rosy.

Joe and I were feeling a little crowded one day. We were really enjoying ourselves, but being around 12 other families constantly was a little unnerving sometimes. So we took one day out on our own and went to go see one of the historical light houses. It was old fashioned and beautiful.

AJ made it a really good workout. 

At the top

Looking down.

I don't know how much truth there is in AJ's sticker because he didn't technically "climb" to the top, I did. I guess we will let it pass this time. 

AJ loved having all this extra time with Daddy. We usually don't get to see him all that often. We see him for about an hour in the morning as we are rushing about to get our day started and then AJ only gets to see him for about 2 hours in the evening for dinner and bed time routine, so this was really fun for AJ to spend so much time with Joe. 

 We had a blast! Thank you everyone who came and made it wonderful. We have so many great friends out here. It makes being away from family a little less difficult. Hope we can go again next year.