Nothing says “Back to Reality” like a flooded basement. All is well now, but what a nice welcome home greeting that was. It’s actually great to be home and back to “normal life”. We have been gone most of July and I am ready to be back in my home and church.

The OBX was FABULOUS as usual, but not without a few bumps along the way!

The highlights: Relaxing in a huge waterfront beach house (paid for by my lovely parents-THANKS MOMMY AND DADDY), watching Abel indulge in the sand, cuddling up in the hot tub with my hot husband, watching OBX sunsets, eating WAY too much yummy food, playing poker till midnight, kayaking, playing in the pool with Abel and my niece & nephew, and of course, being with my crazy family. It doesn’t get much better then our OBX vacations.

The downers: Seth hurting his tailbone only after a few hours of us arriving at our new beach home, hearing Abel scream the whole way home in the car, having a mini hurricane sweep through our little beach town and watching the grill fly through the air and hit our little Honda (leaving a nice dent), making a middle of the night trip to the OBX ER due to Abel’s EXTREMELY high fever. (I’ll save that adventure for another post).

I will say the highlights definitely outweighed the downers. I just LOVE the Outer Banks so much! I feel like I am in a little piece of heaven when I am there. I have so many great memories from year’s past and not to mention it is one of the most gorgeous, peaceful beaches in the US.

As usual, we took WAY too many photos. I was a bit disappointed since we only got one measly family photo of the three of us and I didn’t get a entire family photo….arugh! I was TERRIFIED to take our new camera on the beach so we didn’t get as many pictures as I had hoped for, even though you would never know it since this post is OVERLOADED with beach photos!

Enjoy some of the highlights from our OBX adventure. (wow, photo overload)

Who is that STUD in the sand?

We all know you can’t take a baby to the beach without this happening…

He truly indulged himself in the sand. Would you believe that just one month ago he was terrified of the sand, he screamed bloody murdered if his toes touched it….obviously, something changed. Talk about beach bum.

He would swim in the sand and do “snow/sand angels”. It was hilarious!

It appears that my child has red hair in this photo. He might be taking after his Great Uncle “Red”.

By this photo, he realized that the sand wasn’t worth eating.

Look at that beauty in the water. This girl has NO FEAR!

Abel preferred to watch cous’ in the water.

Time for a group photo of the kids…Sad but true, this is the best photo we could get of them.

The sweetest kid you will ever meet.

My boys..

Our beach backyard…if only real life was this good.

Our Kayak for the week. After this week, Seth and I realized we NEED to get a boat. We live one mile from the water (Potomac River) and it is just so much fun being out on the water.

We were welcomed by this lovely creature in our backyard the first morning.

Gorgeous as usual.

Fun at the pool.

Abel, what’s that on your lip?

These two usually were fighting at any given moment. They have such a love/hate relationship.

The back of our beach house. A view from the kayak.

Love this one.

The “annual” mommy and Abel beach photo.

Hi Alison and Graham!

Some of Seth’s great nature shots.

The ONLY family photo we got.

Corolla is known for its wild horses. If you can stomach the drive on the bumpy sand, then you will be blessed with seeing these beautiful creatures. They obviously aren’t starving to death! Look at that belly!

Babies…can you stand it!

Awww….nursing colts….too cute!

Seth was able to capture some great shots of the horses. This one needs to be on a horse calendar.

This one too!

Abel’s ER trip was long and exhausting. He is fine now, but was having a reaction to the Chicken Pox vaccination he received last week, which turned into Roseola. He also has another ear infection, which is why he graced us with his loud screams the whole way home from the beach. (Hospital pictures coming…of course, daddy Seth brought his camera to the ER! You have to see our child on high doses of Mortin!)