Outer Banks 2010

the happy beach family

Dave boarding after the storm

Ben finally braving the ocean see how he is freaking out

the huge sand castle

playing in the pool

Dave trying to convince Ben that the ocean is ok.

Sienas new best friend. Adayla put make up on Siena one day she was in heaven.

These are pictures after Earl

this is the walkway down to the beach. It is stairs that were completely covered with sand it looked like a ramp. The poor ocean front houses had so much sand in their pools.

the big waves.

this is my all-time favorite picture. We went to Sonic restaurant on the way back in and they had duck taped the drive up menus to protect them through the hurricane. Duct tape will protect anything.

do you see the blue sky ahead!

This is on the way back in after the evacuation order had been lifted.

playing playdough in the hotel room so we wouldn't be too bored.

nakey boy.

too much water and sand Ben apparently needed a nap.

having to leave early.

so many fun friends at the beach house

crab hunting with glow sticks and flashlights. Siena and Ben love doing this. This year we found some HUGE crabs. One of them kept escaping the bucket we had and Siena claims that it ran over her foot and pinched her. It freaked her out. It would me too but I don't think it really pinched her. That is all she talks about now with the crabs.

my cute beach bum. She loved the Ocean and Dave scared me when she kept asking him to take her farther out and Dave would. There were strong rip tides.

It's our most favorite time of the year. Time for our beach house trip. Every year we take it at the same time right before Labor day. We do this because the houses are a lot cheaper and it's a fun way to end the summer. We always take the risk of having a hurricane ruin the vacation because it's right at the beginning of hurricane season. We have been fortunate to never have been affected by them. This year hurrican Earl decided to grace us with his presence. Oh how we hate Earl. The first three days were beautiful. We had never had that good of weather. It was sunny low 90's. perfect beach weather. We enjoyed the pool and the beach. Wednesday evening we watched the weather channel closely and they were predicting the outer banks to be clipped with the hurricane. We thought we would be tough and just hang out in the house all day Thursday. We were only going to evacuate if they made us. Despite the fact that a couple months ago we had watched this weather channel show about not evacuating a hurricane and the chaos and flooding that happened and how the police refused to come and help this couple because they hadn't evacuated and it was too late for them. We thought it wouldn't be that bad but we were worried about flooding and not being able to get our cars out again. Thursday morning we were called at 7 a.m. by the owner of the houes saying there was a mandatory evacuation for all guests in the outer banks. So now we had to leave. We quickly packed up and left. We did this really quickly, the house was a mess but we found a back way out of the little island and missed most of the traffic. Dave and I were so mad. The only thing we had to come home to was more unpacking. We quickly decided to go inland a little bit and sit out the storm. We went to Elizabeth City which is 45 minutes inland of the outer banks. All the hotels were crazy booked. We kept driving through all these little towns and couldn't find a hotel anywhere. We finally went to Chesapeake and found a decent hotel to stay in. It just happened to be by a mall so we spent the afternoon at the mall and then went to the hotel where it was full of mostly families that had evacuated the outer banks. So everyone was in the lobby glued to the weather channel. It was so frustrating. So we spent the night there and woke up again to watch the weather channel. We saw the hurricane rain and got a little bit of it in Chesapeake but we have had much bigger storms here in D.C. It was not that bad where we were. Finally at noon Friday they lifted the evacuation order for the outer banks saying there was no flooding, no damages and not even any electricity lost. We were packed up and ready to go back. We were only an hour and a half away from the outer banks. We were one of the first people back in. It was so nice that we could go back. It was well worth the crazy hotel stay that night. We went back and set the hot tub cooler and played in the hot tub while Dave cleaned the pool. There were a lot of branches and dirt in there. Finally 4 of the 5 families that we shared a house with came back. We are so glad we did. We went down on the beach and checked out the wreckage. The next day we went to the beach to swim and play. The red flags were up for no swimming but we waded and played in the sand. There were biting flies on the beach. We all got attacked by them. I finally went to get bug spray to keep them away but it only worked for so long. We were so mad that we came back to the beach and have these flies ruin it for us. So we went back to the pool for the day. The last day Sunday we packed up our beach house and got in our bathing suits to see if there was a last chance at the beach. It was the most beautiful day. I guess the flies were there just after the hurricane because they had left by Sunday. We stayed there a couple hours and enjoyed the beach. Dave said it was the best boogie boarding that day. Ben finally got in the ocean too! We went back to our beach house but couldn't get in because we had to check out that morning so we took showers in the outside pool showers. Then we were off back to Va. The first day we were at the beach Siena said it was too sandy and Ben said there was too much water. I thought we were going to have problems that week if my kids wouldn't like the beach. It turned out my kids were just having an off day. Siena had eaten too much candy and was grumpy the whole day until later that day she threw it all up. That was real pleasant. Overall it was a great trip. Great friends, fun house, good food and for the most part good weather. I never want to hear about Earl again. He almost ruined our trip.