OBX Summer Vacation Part 1

Ok, it will probably take me several posts to get through our OBX 2011 vacation but hey, I am proud I am starting my 5 post in just over a week!

Let's start with how I came up with OBX in the first place! Ron and I took the kids on a walk to the park down the street from us and decided to walk on the trails. The trails lead to a creek that you can walk down to and skip rocks. Part of the area is sand and Riley LOVED to dig in it and find "sea shells". That got me talking to Ron about how I would love to go back to the beach and Riley is at a perfect age for it. So my Internet searching began. I was thinking Virgina Beach but after some digging around it was a little out of our price range plus most places didn't take dogs. So, what is any normal person do? Hey Mom and Dad want to go with us? :) Of COURSE IT IS!! We tried to get Steve and Terri to come, but their works schedules are crazy and it didn't work out. I started looking a little more south of Virgina Beach and found the Outer Banks! Tons of houses to rent and reasonable priced and a lot of the houses accepted dogs. It was perfect! Then I had to do a little research to figure out what exactly is the Outer Banks? It is a strip of land on the coast of North Carolina that is surrounded by water!


Our house was between Rodanthe and Salvo in a little town called Waves, and when I say little I mean if you blink you will miss it!



Once we decided on the Outer Banks it was time to start searching for a house! I think my Mom and I looked for several weeks before we narrowed it down to two houses. We had two requirements a pool and a ocean view. We really wanted ocean front but we decided 6 weeks before we left so that really limited our choices. I have to say our choice was perfect! We ended up staying at Albacore and it had a pool and was ocean front, PERFECT!

The back of our house

The Pool!!

See I told you the Easter Bunny brought the kids things for vacation! Look at all those pool toys!

The view from the 3rd story of our house! Yes the mound blocked some of our view but it also blocked the wind! The outer banks is a very windy place!

We left the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. I helped out at the track that day so a friend from church watched Riley. I knew as soon as I picked her up that something was wrong, she was napping. I just figured it was because she had gotten up early and with everything else going on she was over excited. We got on the road by 3:00 and we drove til after midnight. Riley was a little cranky but I just shrugged it off to being in the car for so long. The next morning I knew something was wrong, my sweet little baby was a grouchy and had a fever. We stopped and got some Tylenol but my monster has figured out how to make herself sick and needless to say nothing stayed down. It was a LONG 6 hour drive that day and I didn't think we would ever get there. Finally we did and got all checked in. Word of advice if you ever stay in a 3 story house with the living room and kitchen on the 3rd floor make sure it has an elevator! And no, I am not joking several houses in OBX has elevators.

Once we got checked in we started dinner, we were all exhausted and just wanted OUT of the car. When choosing OBX I should of Mapquested it first, 16 hour drive was NOT fun. I had put medicine in Riley's cup so she was still feeling a little better but you could see it in her eyes, she was SICK. By 10:00 that night she had a fever of 104. Panic mode quickly set in and we called her doctor. He said it was probably Roseolla, which she has had before and to go get a Tylenol suppository since she wouldn't keep down medicine. It took us 45 minutes to get to the closest pharmacy open, so an hour and a half to get medicine and back, really!?! Talk about beyond frustration! Sunday we had already had the day planned out, pool, Indy 500, eat, beach, NASCAR race, pool, eat, well you get the picture much of NOTHING! Riley was feeling better as long as the medicine was working and even ended up in the pool! She is such a diva :)

And no I am not ignoring Anthony, I think he said 5 words to us the whole way there. He managed to beat a brand new DS game and watch a few movies as well. Once we got there I think he lived in the pool the first two days. Anytime I wanted to get pictures he was already in the pool or the hot tub! He was worried about Riley but we were able to distract him some. He did play ping pong and Foosball and spent the night watching the NBA game with Papa.

One of Tony's favorite things to do was to feed the birds off the balcony. The dogs went crazy and Riley was in awe. Riley tried to feed them everything from bread to gummy worms :) There would be hundreds come around once Tony started feeding them it was pretty cool!

That was pretty much the first two days we were there a illness, a great Indy 500 race, lots of yummy food, not much else :)