Whats up mates! Final week was our annual journey to the Outer Banks with Matt’s household. Right here’s a recap!
It’s enjoyable having a weblog to look again on previous journey recaps – we’ve been touring to the Outer Banks one week every summer season since 2012, a full decade now!
The household and I had enjoyable trying again at a few of my previous weblog posts concerning the journeys, like this one (<- test it out for some throwback pictures)!
The journey seems to be completely different (and much more chaotic/loud) these days than it did again then as a consequence of all of the babies operating round, however regardless of it not being a soothing trip it was positively a enjoyable one. 🙂
Most mornings began like this – with a dawn!
Wes was not thinking about sleeping late on this trip sadly, however a minimum of we acquired some good sunrises out of it. And Matt and I alternate days so I acquired to sleep in each different day. 🙂
Breakfast was easy since we have been busy chasing youngsters – normally toast with nut butter and a few fruit. Someday we did all have some bacon and eggs, too – yum.
The cantaloupe on the seashore was sooo good. I all the time neglect how scrumptious it’s after I haven’t had it in season for awhile! The peaches or “seashore peaches” as we name them, are additionally all the time incredible (fANNEtastic, I imply…)!
I didn’t get in any runs on the journey this yr (it was outrageously humid so not tremendous interesting, anyway), however I did get out for a pair early morning stroller walks which was good!
And I did make it to Village Yoga, the yoga studio I like in Duck, a pair instances in order that was tremendous good.
By the point everybody was up Wes was normally prepared for his morning nap (we’re on a two nap schedule nonetheless, which is good and in addition robust when it comes to getting out to do stuff), however fortunately we had a pool at our home so we have been capable of take Riese to the pool and convey the monitor down there with us!
We had a ton of enjoyable splashing across the pool with Riese and our nephews (there are 3 of them), and I additionally acquired in a tiny little bit of studying, too. 🙂 I used to be ending up the final e book in a trilogy (Shades of Magic <- affiliate hyperlink) I actually loved – extremely advocate!
It was sort of like Harry Potter meets The Magicians. Legit the very best books I’ve learn in ages – nice writing and an excellent intricate, inventive world – I’m so unhappy I’m achieved with the collection!
Lunches most days have been both some type of a sandwich scenario with a aspect veggie (like carrots/peppers) and/or fruit:
And I additionally made some massive salads (a few which included leftover pasta salad as properly), too, normally utilizing dinner leftovers like leftover rooster or salmon, plus some microgreens we introduced from the farmer’s market at residence.
Most of our meals and hang around time on the home have been spent ensuring Wes didn’t fall down the steps – we had a gate on the high of the principle stairs down that was inbuilt (tremendous helpful), however we didn’t have one for the flight of stairs that went as much as a bit of small hangout space.
He was OBSESSED with climbing them – stairs are his new favourite factor, apparently. (And sure, he was solely taking part in with that random soda bottle and never ingesting it, in case that wasn’t apparent…)
Anyway – again to the meals.
I additionally had one lunch out on the town – on the final day of our trip my mother-in-law, sister-in-law Jess, and I went to a yoga class after which had a lunch date after at NC Coast. It was scrumptious – I had a salad with seared scallops, plus some shared candy potato fries.
Afternoons have been after we hit the seashore! We introduced Wes down a pair instances, however he was not an enormous fan because the sand was tremendous sizzling and the waves have been scary. 🙂 So we principally went whereas he was taking his afternoon nap.
Riese loved it although! She didn’t need to go totally into the water however preferred standing on the edge and feeling the water on her legs, and she or he cherished constructing sand castles with Matt.
Matt and I additionally made it right down to the seashore one afternoon on our personal – Riese was having some downtime with the TV and Wes was taking his second nap so we left the monitor along with his mother and father. Win!
For dinners, we alternated who was in cost every night time.
Matt’s youthful brother Drew made peanut butter noodles (<- recipe, a giant household fave) with rooster for everybody one night time (plus a aspect salad). We missed his spouse, Morgana, who couldn’t make it to the seashore this yr as a consequence of work!
For our cooking night time, Matt and I made my salmon with lemon mustard dill sauce (<- recipe) which was successful – certainly one of our nephews even declared it “the very best salmon ever”!
And it was good as a result of it was tremendous simple to scale up and make a whole lot of directly, too.
We had it with some boiled corn (SO GOOD), a slaw that Matt’s dad threw collectively for us, and a few baked tomato pie (bought at one of many farm markets on the town, we get it yearly and it’s scrumptious and principally cheese with a bit of tomato in there too).
Easy and yummy and never an excessive amount of clear up, both – win/win! I added the yogurt sauce to my salmon after taking this image.
Matt’s older brother Chris and his spouse Jess did a taco bar for his or her cooking night time – tacos are all the time a household fave! They made them with floor turkey plus all types of topping choices. I went again for another after this image. 🙂
We additionally had a giant group dinner at our pal’s place (Matt’s finest pal from residence, Thomas, who I additionally went to school with, and his household go to the seashore with us yearly – they keep in a home close by! His mother and father are good mates with Matt’s mother and father) on 4th of July, which was enjoyable.
There have been SO MANY KIDS! All of them had a blast.
We did a cookout with grilled burgers, sizzling canine, and so forth.
Whereas we have been there and searching presentable (I needed to bribe Riese to put on a gown, let me put her hair again, and be in photos – she’s in a bizarre section proper now the place she needs to put on lengthy pants and lengthy sleeved shirts even in 95 diploma climate… argh… has anybody else had a child undergo this section?! it’s weird) we had Matt’s brother Drew get some photos of us. 🙂
Definitely worth the bribe (a lollipop – gotta do what you gotta do generally, my mates), I’d say! Additionally, are you able to even deal with Wes’s tiny little boat sneakers? They’re hand me downs from a pal, so treasured!
I needed to take Wes again to our place for bedtime round 8 so I missed the fireworks sadly, however Matt mentioned Riese had a blast!
One of many different highlights from the week was a dinner out on the town with Matt, his brother Drew, and our mates Thomas and Janice. The grandparents stayed residence with the youngsters – such a pleasant deal with!
We went to NC Coast for dinner (sure, the identical place I went for lunch – it’s certainly one of our faves on the town!) and I began with a superb salad, plus some shared apps like their crab dip and seared tuna…
And for my entree I had the crab truffles with roasted potatoes and veggies, however I forgot to get an image I used to be having such a superb time socializing!
After dinner (which was tremendous early – we met at 4:30 as a result of in any other case it’s not possible to get a desk and not using a reservation, which we didn’t have), we went out onto the boardwalk to take a look at the views and get some photos.
Storms have been looming so it seemed very mysterious there…
We walked a bit of means down the boardwalk and ended up settling at a spot known as Eventide for some extra drinks whereas we watched the storms roll in!
I didn’t need any extra drinks apart from water (I used to be soooo thirsty from being within the solar all week) and wished a bit of one thing to snack on so acquired a mini cheese board. Yum!
We had a beautiful view!
We additionally had a incredible view of the large rainstorm that got here via – it didn’t final lengthy nevertheless it was fairly intense!
Fortunately by the point we have been able to go, the storms had paused and we had a lovely sundown peaking via.
We had some stunning sunsets on the home earlier within the week as properly – all the time love a superb seashore sundown!
Cherished the blue and pink colours of the one under.
We have been unhappy to say goodbye to the Outer Banks – the week glided by shortly! – but additionally glad to get again residence and into a greater sleep routine – Riese was in a bunk room along with her massive cousins and she or he LOVED it, however they didn’t sleep lots and by the top of the week she was sort of a sizzling mess.
We ended up doing each the drive right down to the seashore and the drive residence at night time – final yr it took us 7 hours to drive down and 9 hours to drive residence and we have been like NEVER AGAIN.
So, now we go away after dinner and drive at nighttime and the youngsters sleep within the automobile and it’s a lot faster and simpler than battling the site visitors. It solely took us about 4ish hours every means which was an enormous enchancment. Arriving at our vacation spot round midnight or so is just not tremendous enjoyable, nevertheless it’s positively higher than sitting within the site visitors all day with the youngsters awake and bored…
Till subsequent time, Duck – we’ll miss you!
