Week/end Recap!

Happy Monday! Last week I took the week off from blogging and (most) work to go on vacation! Steve and I go each year to Corolla, NC (the Outer Banks) with his family some time in July. I’ve traveled to many amazing places in this world, and I’ve been spoiled with the clearest waters and some of the most beautiful beaches you’ll ever see (Panama, Maui, San Diego, Fort Lauderdale, The Galápagos Islands, Punta Cana, Mexico, The Bahamas, etc.) and yet somehow the OBX is still just so incredibly special. It’s more than just a beach, it’s a place that we go to relax and spend quality time with our family, where we have a week away from the world to unwind and just be. It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year.

We stay in Corolla in the Whalehead community. Big beautiful beach houses, and a nice, relatively quiet stretch of beach. We were clearly the winners of the beach this year with our battery operated margarita machine and the epic sandcastle built by the big kids, my husband, his brother, and his brother’s girlfriend.

This year I discovered my love for Duck Donuts. I already have a problematic donut addiction as it is (she says, already three donuts deep for the day) and I may have eaten five Duck donuts in one day. Whoops. But OMG were they AMAZING! As always we had our family game night and played Apples to Apples before bed the rest of the time! The day that the big kids made their sand castle, I relaxed by the pool, finishing my Vonnegut book and starting Divergent. Three days later I had read all three Divergent books. So good!

Meet Charlie! He’s my mother and step father in law’s Jack Russell pup! I just love this little guy. It was nice having a furry friend on vacation. Made it feel more like home :)

Now for the less than fun part of our trip… which started off super fun! Steve took the jeep on two runs to the 4×4 beach to see the wild horses. The first trip was with his brother and girlfriend and they saw wild horses on the beach for the first time ever. So cool!

When we went the next day we weren’t so lucky. So we had to drive over the dunes to go searching for them. There were many deep puddles of water in the sand and of course, Steve enjoyed driving through these even with the doors off… and then we got stuck. Yup, not exactly my idea of a good time, but thankfully we got pulled out fairly quickly by a wild horse tour (yay!!) and were able to get back in time for dinner that night. Unfortunately it has caused some issues with the Jeep (you know, sitting in water and all), and made for a pretty dramatic and lengthy trip back home, but we did end up making it home safely after an amazing week away!

Oh, and after the guy pulled us out of the puddle he said that he had seen jeeps up to their roll cages (basically completely underwater) in that very hole. AND he had seen water moccasins in it. Thankfully he told me this AFTER I had spent over an hour wading back and forth through the water. *shudders*

While we were on vacation we got to hang out with Baby Cruz! Our nephew! For Christmas I gave Ryan and Meghan a frame with a placeholder for Baby Cruz’s debut photo session and we finally made that happen! More from this beautiful family session on the blog tomorrow.

And then on Saturday I got to watch two amazing people say their “I Do’s” in a beautiful ceremony that brought tears to my eyes. I am over the moon giddy about how everything turned out from this day and I can’t wait to share more this Wedding Wednesday!!

And last but certainly not least, this morning I met one of my former students, Steph, at Towson University for her graduation photos! I can’t wait to share more on Thursday!

Have an amazing week!!