Beach Bums

We are home from a gorgeous seven days in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Dave's entire family shares a house (thanks to his very gracious and generous parents) and we have a ball.


We used to go to Cape May, NJ, which had a lot more activity (more shopping, restaurants, house tours, nearby boardwalks, arcades, a zoo, etc.) and I do miss the fun and personality of Cape May. In the Outer Banks, we are just Beach Bums!

We celebrated two birthdays at the beach, Ben, shown above, who always has a donut cake and turned eight this year, and Tyler, my nephew, who turned 13! Below is the Birthday Boy enjoying his new iPod and ignoring the raucous sound of the waves.

We LOVE LOVE LOVE to play in the sand! This year we dug holes and jumped into them...

picked up our fallen heads...

built multiple sandcastles everyday...

and found shells galore and even a sand dollar!

Everyone loves to jump the waves and boogie board, but Maddie loves it most of all. She is the ultimate Beach Bum and could spend the entire day on the beach and it still wouldn't be enough!

The less active among us (hand to mouth-coughing noise..."me!"), enjoyed relaxing on the beach, reading book after book, with a Mike's Hard Lemonade in hand, snoozed poolside, played ladderball and Bocce, and ate way more than usual (what's vacation without gummi worms, grilled seafood, goldfish crackers, and pistachios, I ask you?)

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Ben cried the night before we left. "I don't want to go home! Let's just stay here forever!"

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But of course we couldn't. So we are home and back to healthy meals and regular bedtimes and no beach 20 yards from our back door.

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But we'll be Beach Bums again. It's only 365 days away....