OBX Part 1:The trip started off with a bang!

The Saturday that we were leaving for the beaches of North Carolina (the Outer Banks) the kids had German school, Isaac had a t-ball game, and Brian just had to go hunting.  So he started off in a great mood because he killed himself a buck.

We stopped to spend Saturday night with the family that was going to the beach with us.  Our godson is two months younger than Judah and has been walking for a while now.  The minute we put Judah on the ground with Ned, he took around five or more steps from me to his dad.  Up until then it had only been three steps, at most.  He just needed someone his own size to show him how it's done.  He's still not walking everywhere, but he tries to walk before falling and crawling almost all the time.  He's up to ten-ish steps without falling now.

We went to Mass together the next morning and headed out around lunchtime.  We stopped at the famous Weeping Radish restaurant and brewery (it's always a brewery!)  Brian really wants me to join in his love for beer tasting hobby, but I really don't like bitter stuff.  I am a sweet kind of girl.  However, this place had a hefeweizen that I liked.

I think Hannah was in the bathroom and missed out on this picture.  I wish Isaac had been in the bathroom instead because he kind of ruined the picture.  He was in one of his pouty moods.  He gets this way sometimes, and really Brian and I are at a loss at how to handle it other than our ignore it tactic.  The strangest things will ruin his mood at the seemingly most fun times.  He did this at Sea World too, which how can you even be miserable at Sea World?  This time it was the smell of the place that was grossing him out.  The restaurant makes their own sausages.  Maybe it was that or maybe it was the sauerkraut.  I did smell something when we walked in, but he pouted long after my brain had blocked out the smell.  Once we got a table and he got to coloring and being silly with his friends he was fine, but "What the heck, man!"  Way to put a damper on things when we were all trying to have fun.

These two champs were excellent even after Mass and a long drive.  They sat in their highchairs and had a grand old time.

The beach house was an amazing three story house with wrap around decks and was only one row of houses off the beach.  It was plenty big for our two families with a total of nine kids.  It had a game room on the first floor with a pool table, an air hockey table, and a ping pong table too. The second floor had four of the bedrooms, but one of them was a suite divided off by a sliding door.  The babies each got their own space that way.  Each of the couples got their own room, and then there was a "boy room" with two bunk beds in it.  The three year olds were on the bottom bunks and the older boys got the tops.  Off the second floor were decks with a hot tub and a life size chess set.  The third floor held the kitchen, dinning and living areas, and another bedroom that served as the "girl room" for the three girls.  There was also a pool and a deck on top of the house (not my favorite part of the house!)

The weather was not great for a good portion of the trip, but only one day was rainy.  Lots of days of cloudy skies.  We still tried to get to the beach as often as possible in the mornings.  It was a very short walk to the beach, and the beaches were not crowded at all.

The Go-pod bought me major freedom on the beach.  He was able to eat lunch in there and hang out a while so I wasn't having to watch him try to eat sand and shells the whole time. 

Drew asked me to build him Batman and Robin in the sand.  The ocean was a little too rough for him to hang out there.

Somebody LOVED the beach!

One of the days I spent a lot of time chasing him into the ocean, but the rest of the time he was pretty content withe sand.

A few times during afternoon naps, I got some kid free time on the beach.

See the clouds.  Not perfect weather.