VBS

It was vacation bible school week at our church, Lauren and Kristin helped and Megan and Zachary attended. Today was their little finale where they sing songs.

Kristin had the little ones. There were 3 helpers with 6 kids. Here they are getting ready to sing.

Zach was in group #1 with around 12 kids his age. They started off the week with 2 helpers but had to add a 3rd due to the size (and ages) of the group.

Lauren was in charge of Bible stories again this year. It really doesn't sound like that much fun but she seems to really like it. She must have done a good job this year because I heard several kids say that storytelling was their favorite. They got misted with water when they went on a pretend boat ride and Lauren even got bitten by a poisonous snake but thankfully she was okay. Those were just a couple of things that I heard other kids say. At the end of each day and during the finale she would help out with Zach's group.

Megan was in group #4 and this was her last year attending. Next year, believe it or not, she gets to help out with the rest of the youth.

The one person that I could see really well was Kristin. Everyone else had their backs to me while they were singing. This isn't the best video but it's something.

After the singing it was pizza time!

I think they all had a fun week. Zach would come home everyday and sleep for 3 to 4 hours! He was worn out by today. Kristin liked her little people that she had in the nursery. Everything they did seemed to be funny to her. Megan had her friend with her that she met last year at VBS so all was well with her. Lauren just likes to socialize so storytelling is right up her alley! Plus she was surrounded by the rest of the youth and she always has a good time with them.

We stayed to help them clean up afterwards, took home some leftover pizza and that was the end of VBS week.

Skimboarding

Paul, Lauren and Megan tried this new sport while we were on vacation.After the waves break it creates a shallow, flat surface of water which apparently is perfect for skimboarding. Paul bought a skimboard but then realized that he needed to wax the surface since he kept slipping right off of it. Finally, by mid-week, the skimboard is ready to go.

I guess I can't bust on them too much since I didn't try it but here they are attempting to skimboard.

Lauren

Paul

Megan

That video was one of her earlier attempts. If given more time we all thought that Megan would have excelled at this since she picked it up quickly.

Now, just for fun, here's Zach doing his version of skimboarding:

He looked like he was having way more fun than the rest of them. Maybe he just started a new sport, body skimming!

OBX continued...

I just had way too many pictures to put into one post so I had to split it up. So here's the continuation of our vacation story.

Thursday was the only day we didn't go to the beach. Not because the weather was bad, it was a beautiful day and even a little cooler out, but because we all slept in and laid around all morning. We visited the Wright Brothers National Memorial first which was in Kill Devil Hills. We did a tour that talked about the Wright Brothers first flight. Zach is standing next to a granite boulder marking the spot where the first plane left the ground. Does anyone know when that was? I will forever remember the date after hearing our tour guide say it at least 50 times, it was December 17, 1903 at 10:35 am.
These markers represent the distance that each of the 4 flights went that day.

The Wright Brothers Monument was on top of a hill that we climbed that commemorated where Wilbur and Orville did their glider experiments.

We finished our visit by posing for a picture with a sculpture of the first plane.

Next we went down the street to Jockey's Ridge State Park which is in Nags Head. It is the tallest natural sand dune system in the Eastern United States. We grab our water bottles and head out onto their boarded walkway to an overlook of the sand dunes.

We head out onto the sand and up to the top of one of the dunes.

Part of the fun of being on top of the dunes is getting to the bottom. Lauren decided to roll down.

Zach did a combination of things but one was sliding head first.

Megan came running down. She then climbed back up and rolled down the second time. She was the only one that did it twice.

Kristin (and I) both walked down it.

I think Paul ran down it. I was still over by Zach watching him come down and I did take a picture of Paul but it didn't come out very well with where the sun was. I guess I should have had him climb back up and do it again :)

I've already told you about our visit to the Lighthouse (see Zach's birthday post) so that's about it for what we did. We mostly stayed on the beach since this was a beach trip after all. I do want to share one more picture from when we were at the top of the lighthouse and that is of Kristin.

I just like how she's smiling with her hair blowing. To me it looks like she's a model.

So as I've said already, we left the island and crossed the only bridge there is to get on or off. Going out was no problem, traffic kept moving. Look at the traffic coming the other way though...

They weren't moving either, and this was a little after 11:00 am. That was the traffic that we got into when we arrived. Only for us it was backed up a lot farther. No lie, it took us 3 hrs and 10 minutes to go 15 miles. (Over 10 hrs total to get there.) Thankfully our trip home was uneventful with no traffic and even with breaks it only took us 7 hours.

We loved the Outer Banks and are looking forward to going back but we're not sure about the long drive. We will definitely avoid arriving on a Saturday in the afternoon. I had always heard to be sure to get on the island early, now I know why.

The Outer Banks

With living so close to the Delaware and Jersey beaches we've never thought about going to any other beaches for a vacation. This year we decided to try the Outer Banks after hearing such good things about it. We rented a house in Corolla, the north end of the Outer Banks. Here is what Zach now calls our "other home."
It was a nice house with plenty of room for all of us to spread out in. It was only one street back from the beach with only a couple of minutes walking distance to the beach access.

The beach was beautiful! Plenty of space and the kids could go out pretty far in the ocean and still the water was only at their waist.

The air temp was in the 90's all week but when we were sitting by the ocean it didn't feel that hot. There was always an ocean breeze and the water was quite cool.

Zach was loving the space. He could actually run around and we didn't worry about him since it was so uncrowded.

Most days we would stay at the beach till early afternoon then come back and hop in the pool at the house. While the kids were swimming I made them lunch.

Sunday evening we went out to check out the shops nearby and found this:

Paul, Zach and Lauren were the only ones that wanted to do it. You know Zach loved it since it was a car and he thought he was driving.

Every morning except one we got up, ate breakfast and headed for the beach. There was never a problem with getting a spot. We usually set up our umbrella behind where high tide would be then bring our chairs and sit at the edge of the surf with beach toys spread in between. The kids loved digging in the sand, the wetter the better.

I took a swimsuit that had a floatie built in for Zach to use at the pool. He was swimming all around the pool with that thing on.

Tuesday evening we went to an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet in Kitty Hawk. We got there later than we wanted to and because of that there was quite a wait. Behind the restaurant though there were different activities set up that you could do to occupy your time. Megan, Zach and Lauren started playing a cornhole game. Can you see how dark the sky looks behind Megan?

There was a storm approaching so they ended their game, quickly tried out the mini golf then we headed for cover.

Another day at the beach...

...and swimming in the pool.

Little man took a good nap most days. One day we let him skip his nap because I thought it was too late in the day but he had other ideas. One minute he was running around and talking and the next he was asleep on Lauren. I don't think I've ever seen someone go to sleep that quickly!

Zach did amazingly well, better than I thought he would. I got a kick out of what he said after we got home. He was telling me about something that happened while we were at the beach and he referred to where we stayed as our "other house." I wish!

To be continured...

Happy 4th Birthday Zachary!

Zachary got to set foot in 4 different states on his birthday yesterday. That's because we were travelling back from the Outer Banks in North Carolina from a week of being on vacation there. We started off in North Carolina, ate our lunch in Virginia, took a break in Maryland and finally arrived home in Delaware.

A trip report is coming but for now I'll tell you how we celebrated Zach's birthday (and how we ended our vacation).

Saturday when we woke up it was time to pack the car up and leave. Here's my 4-year-old little boy first thing in the morning.

We heard traffic is terrible if you leave before noon so after packing up the car and handing in our keys we headed to the Currituck Beach Lighthouse which was right down the street from us.

Some lighthouses you can't climb to the top but this one you could so all 6 of us hike up the winding staircase. It sounded like a good idea before we climbed..not so much as we were climbing. But we made it and took in the view, there was a nice breeze up there too.

The view of Corolla, NC from the top of the lighthouse, the ocean is to your left and the Currituck Sound is to your right.

After viewing the lighthouse we headed in the direction of the bridge to get off the Outer Banks. If traffic was bad we would detour and hang out in Kitty Hawk for a while and get something to eat. If traffic kept moving we would leave and eat later. Well traffic wasn't bad so it was goodbye to the Outer Banks for us. Our official leaving time was 10:40.

This is how Zach spent the majority of his birthday, strapped in a car seat!

We purposely stopped and ate lunch in Virgina so Zach could get out and say he set foot in that state.

Then we purposely stopped in Maryland for the same reason. In fact, we were about 15-20 minutes away from the Maryland line when Zach said he had to go potty. Poor kid, we made him hold it! (But don't feel too bad for him, when we did stop he didn't go.) Even with about 50 minutes of breaks we arrive home around 5:45.

We had Outback for dinner and then it was present opening time.
Singing happy birthday and blowing out candles was last.

Here's a funny story about what Zach said while we were still in the car. We were about half an hour away from home and one of us must have said how glad we were to be so close. Zach then says that when he gets home it'll be his birthday party. Uhh...no! Hopefully he wasn't too disappointed.

Happy Birthday Paul!

Yeah, I'm a little late in posting this. I guess with 4 kids being home I've been busy?!?!

So Paul had a birthday this past Tuesday and he decided to try The Cheesecake Factory for dinner. None of us have ever been to one before and now that there's one over at the mall we were looking forward to trying it.

I think overall dinner was very good and at least according to me and Lauren the portion sizes were huge. Of course who can go to a place called The Cheesecake Factory and not get cheesecake. Here's Paul's birthday cheesecake our waitress brought him:
Yes, they did sing happy birthday to him. :)

The girls sitting across from us:

After dinner we go home and open presents and cards. Lauren had gotten him a funny card that told Paul to act out certain things to make it look like she had written something funny and heart felt. It probably would have been better if we had told Megan about it because all she wanted was for him to read it out loud.

That's Lauren talking. Megan tells me to stop because I tapped her leg wanting her to be quiet. I thought she knew I was taping...

First cheesecake then chocolate cake. Lauren made, iced and decorated the cake.

Happy birthday dear! I won't mention how old you are (hint: look at the numbers on the cake!)