Our Getaway - Day 3

Two words.  Sun rise.  Went out to watch the sun rise Wednesday morning.  Thought it might be a bid disappointing since there were quite a few low-lying clouds.  Boy, was I wrong!

There were dolphins swimming in the distance!

God's beauty at its finest!

We drove up to Manteo to Roanoke Island Festival Park.  Princess Sparkle is learning about early settlements in America in history class right now.  She was excited when I told her we'd be going here on vacation.  (We will have 4 days of school in while while on vacation.  Two school days while traveling down and back and two days worth of field trips.  I call that a win / win!)

Queen Elizabeth II

In the bowels of the ship

Hollowing out a canoe

Searching for fossils

Squirrels like sour cream Pringles, Bugles and pretzels.  Who knew!?!

We stopped at the Christmas Mouse store while in Manteo.

Butterfly found her name on on the Nice List.

She also found Isabella's name -- believe it our not, Aunt Mel.

Camero, tractor, motorcycle and ATV ornaments -- not sure which was his favorite.

Sparkle doing her best owl impression.

 We also stopped at the dunes on the way back to our vacation house.  The kids loved running up and down them.  There were a lot more neat shells in this area too.

Sparkle's creation

Ended the day at the beach!

Our Getaway - Day 2

To say the kids enjoyed the beach would be a gross understatement.  They have a healthy fear for the ocean, but they could play there all day.  We only went for a couple hours the days we did go.

After we walked over the sand dunes, we came to this sand "shelf" before getting to the water on the ocean side.  (Remember this shelf.)

 I think it was their goal to find as many gross things as possible on this trip. I didn't even take pictures of some of the things we found -- fish heads, single crab legs.

Love this shot, and I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of half the time because it was so bright outside.

 

Enjoying the beach toy that the girls bought Bud for his birthday in anticipation of going to the beach.

This . . .

led to this.

Wanna play a little game of Name Those Feet?

I took a little time in the afternoon to scout out a place to take family photos.  Enjoyed taking some pictures while I was out.

We headed down to the Hatteras Lighthouse in the evening not realizing they closed at 5 pm.

She wanted me to make her as big as the lighthouse in the photo, but seeing as we couldn't walk a mile away to do that, we ended up with this.

Our first family selfie!

The sunset beside the lighthouse included two rainbow bursts.

Our Getaway - Day1

It's been too long.  Six years to be exact.  A couple long weekends here and there, but not a full week away.  I can't begin to describe how excited the kids have been -- countdown on the wall, jumping up and down, dancing, squealing voices . . .

(I've had this in draft for three days.  If I don't just cut to the chase, I'm never going to post!  So here it is.)

Visiting the Wright Brothers Museum / Monument . . .

A bit windy?!?

Bud was NOT thrilled to be here at first (because we hadn't gotten in the pool yet on our vacation).  I took some time to explain the significance of the Wright Brothers, and by the end, he wanted his picture with Wilbur and Orville.

The Knight, Princess Sparkle and Princess Butterfly walked up to see the monument while Bud and I stay at the bottom and played on the airplane.

FINALLY -- in the pool

A little froggie-CPR