A week vacation on the Outer Banks in North Carolina was exactly what our family needed after a busy and grueling work trip to Boise for me the week prior and the everyday hustle and bustle for everyone. It’s always nice to get away and if the “away” includes a beach and sunshine, what is better than that?
Our neighbors (and good friends) have a beautiful beach house on Cape Hatteras in the town of Frisco and graciously offered us use of the home when we wanted.
As is typical with most vacations that include kids (especially young ones) there is a lot of planning and prep work that goes into any vacation and then you want to make sure that while you have activities planned and at the ready, you also leave time to just be and relax. I feel like our 5 day vacation was a perfect balance of just that.
We also lucked out with the weather. We got sunny, but not too hot weather all week long. It was so pleasant.
There were moments of relaxation. (Usually followed by chaos – ha!)
We got in some good beach time. The beach house is less than a 5-minute walk to the beach and while Tommy, the kiddos, and Violet and I separately walked to the beach from the house a few times, we really hit our stride when Tommy made the excellent decision of buying a beach permit that allowed us to drive our car on the beach. We would drive until we found a good place to park and then would set up shop!
The house has a nice size pool, so we spent some time poolside. (Note I didn’t say in the pool. The water was a bit too cold to get in still).
We are a couple delicious meals out, but also ate pretty well at the house (yay for my meal planning ahead of time)!
We had lunch on our first full day at Harbor Deli at the urging of our neighbor, Brad.
He strongly recommended I get the shrimp burger (just like a crab cake, but with shrimp) and he was not wrong.
We ate a yummy dinner at Dinky’s Waterfront Restaurant.
In true fashion, I ordered their fried oyster dinner.
We did non-beach sightseeing. We visited the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. The lighthouse is located in the town of Buxton.
Visitors can go up to the top of the lighthouse, but unfortunately we couldn’t because Ava wasn’t quite tall enough. (And boy, was she bummed). Obviously the photo above and below were taken before she knew this.
I got a yoga class in at Hatteras Yoga!
And we celebrate – Luke turning 9 months! Where, oh where has time gone?!
While the trip took a lot of work and driving (it was about a 9 hour drive total with 2 stops going and 2 stops coming back), it was totally worth it! We loved being at the beach for several days unplugging and having fun. Thank you so much Zeigler/Williams family for this opportunity!
[…] are heading back to the Outer Banks at the end of July and I cannot wait. If we still have to be somewhat quarantined, I will do it at […]