Outer Banks with Grandma and Grandpa

 Last week we went to Duck, NC on the Outer Banks for 4 days. This is Wednesday afternoon when we got to the beach. It was the tail end of a tropical storm and still really windy. We found all sorts of cool things on the beach - shark or skate egg sacks, beautiful drift wood, tons of crabs, huge horseshoe crab shells, a huge dead ray (it was 4 feet across at least) and the most shells I have ever seen. If you look in the gazebo you can see Luke rejoicing! We are a family that seriously loves the beach!

This is the only picture I have of all of us together. I was going to crop out the Birthday message fro Lindsey, but I'm too lazy to care that much :)

 I am surprised I didn't get a picture of Jason with Luke. Along with Craig, they fished most of the time we were at the beach. Luke caught a small Sheep's Head (?) no one else caught anything. But they had fun!

Wright Brother's Museum and Memorial

 Duck is about 30 minutes north of Kitty Hawk. We actually came here with Heather and Eli and baby Issac years ago. I wanted to get a picture like the one I have, boys in the stroller, girls on either side. You can see how  helpful Sophie was being.

Noah and walked out the full distance of the 3rd and farthest flight in 1903

 I can't find some of my pictures. This is a replica of the Wright Brother's first plane, well first plane that accomplished manned flight. Noah and Jason went on a small sightseeing flight and the pilot let Noah control the plane of the Wright memorial. So his first flight is where the actual first flight was! Noah was beyond enthralled. He talked all of our ears off about it the rest of the trip.

I think this is my favorite picture of our trip. With our new pick up we can drive miles out on the beach. You really are all alone, it is so amazing. There are other people sprinkled here and there, and huge crazy big vacation homes. Luke got really carsick and did not have fun this trip on the beach. We had just finished our traditional seafood lunch, his didn't sit too well. Other 3 kids had a ball.

 
 Wild horses, luckily we saw them right away once we turned to go inland. Luke was soooo sick. Poor kid. These pictures look so wild and remote. The rest of the herd across the street , which to be fair was only sand, was grazing in someone's front lawn, junky cars in the background. It was really cool to see, especially for Grace.

 

Sophie is lots of amazing things. Good at jumping pictures she is not. Noah and Grace cracking up makes me laugh every time!

 

Our last day at the beach Sophie and Luke figured out how to catch the ghost crabs that were all over the beach. She kept this one as her pet all day and mightily tried to get me to let her bring it home. It was really cute, when sand got in it's eyes it had small arms that looked like windshield wipers to clean itself.




Craig and Dessa drove Jason up to Philadelphia and the kids and I stopped by one of the NC aquariums on our way home. It was fun, small, but had some cool things we hadn't seen before. Good trip, lots of fun memories.