SHIPPWRECKED: Outer Banks 2012

Our family got home yesterday from an absolutely wonderful week at Nags Head Beach in the Outer Banks! Leaving for the beach was quite an adventure. Last Friday night, my mom and I were sitting in the basement watching the gymnastics Olympic Trials when out of nowhere it started storming and our power went out! We had to finish all of our packing in the dark so we could still leave the next morning. My sisters came home from Girls Camp that night and we had to take all of their dirty laundry with us! We were able to leave as planned the next morning after leaving a key to our house with our wonderful neighbors the Overtons who came and cleaned out our fridge and freezer for us! When we got to North Carolina, instead of making our traditional stop at McDonalds, the family met up at Wendy's to shake things up a bit. After eating and making many MANY jokes about making a stop at the Wright Brother's Memorial, we headed to Manteo to spend the afternoon there until our house was ready! I should explain, EVERY SINGLE YEAR we have gone to the Wright Brother's Museum when we get to the Outer Banks. It is essentially two exhibits and then you can walk up a HUGE hill to this statue. As much as we all love airplanes, it is probably the most boring museum in the world, especially growing up in DC and seeing all of the museums at the Smithsonian. Needless to stay, spending the afternoon walking around the docks at Manteo and looking in the super cute shops was much more appealing! We then headed over to our GORGEOUS house! We unloaded the cars as fast as we could so we could head down to the beach! It was a great first day!

On Sunday morning we had a Sacrament Meeting at the beach house! It was a really fun experience! Then we hurriedly ate breakfast and headed down to the beach where we spent the rest of the day! Me, Amy, and Jonathan were in the ocean and decided that we needed to fill the void left by Matthew's absence. Then lo and behold right before our eyes a super attractive guy walks out of the house next to ours. He was so buff and so attractive and I fell in love. Thus we found Beach Matthew. Julie took a creeper picture of him at the end of the week! I'll post it on here because his hotness just needs to be shared! Monday again was spent at the beach. That night, we convinced all of the parents that a trip to Sweet Frog was absolutely necessary! The Nags Head Sweet Frog is SO MUCH COOLER than the one that I work at! It was just awesome. The place was packed too! Tuesday was again spent at the beach. We ordered delicious pizza for dinner and after a nice walk on the beach spent the rest of the night enjoying a Dance Moms marathons. Best guilty pleasure show EVER. Wednesday was the 4th of July. Wednesday was also the first time I ever got sun poisoning. After spending the morning at the beach, my face got SUPER swollen. As Jenn and Julie so lovingly put it, I looked kind of like an Avatar. I felt pretty awful and spent the rest of the day in bed and couldn't go down to the beach on Thursday morning which I was not exactly pleased about. However, thanks to a Priesthood blessing from my dad, Dave, and Phil I was completely fine by Friday and able to go back down to the beach! Oh and I got to go to dinner with the adults on Thursday night at this delicious seafood restaurant called Sugar Creek! I got crab cakes and they were amazing! Then we all took our traditional trip to Fat Boyz for ice cream! After that my family and Jensen went to Food Lion to pick up a few things and we had the most fun time in a grocery store ever! We took lots of pictures and people looked at us like we were crazy! We didn't care though! Friday was our last day there! :( But the coolest thing happened! A pack of about 10 dolphins swam past us about 20 feet or so from the shore! I'm terrible at estimating distances, but they were SO CLOSE. They were riding the waves and kept flipping their fins out of the water to show off! It was SO cool! We took the traditional family pictures that night. After dinner, all of the kids went for a night swim in the pool. We then watched a slideshow of pictures from the trip that my dad put together. Then, after one last Office marathon, we all went to sleep. We were very sad to leave on Saturday morning after such a wonderful week! It was so much fun! I love my family so much! Now for some pictures thanks to Mom, Julie, and Amy!