OBX 2015 – Beach Week Recap!

Another year of vacationing with the Shaw/Flanders Clan has passed and it was another great one! This year we had to leave a couple of days early so I made sure to truly enjoy vacation and left my camera in the room most of the time. We had a blast! There was jet-skiing, 3 beach days, a pool day, an airplane adventure, lots of donuts, and a hilarious toddler with an ever-growing vocabulary. Last year we called the year of the squawking, as Cruz was about 6 months old and made lots of noise. He was an incredibly happy baby, don’t get me wrong! Just very vocal. Well now that very vocal baby is 18 months old and has quite the vocabulary! Some of his favorites are to tell you that he’s “stuck”, that something’s “a mess”, along with some ever hilarious interactions. Like telling him “I love you, Cruz” and he replies by saying “bye bye”. Or him saying very slowly and deliberately “hubba hubba!” He was so fun to have around! Unfortunately we didn’t end up having time before we left for family photos, but we did get a single family portrait on the deck!

I also took a few photos of our vacation puppy (my in laws’ puppy) Charlie while he was out for a quick play time!

Our airplane adventure was by far the highlight of this year’s trip. Steve’s brother Brandon has been in flight school for the last few months and recently did his first solo flight. He arranged to rent a plane for a few hours and take us up in it two at a time (plus a flight instructor) for a tour of the outer banks. As beautiful as the views were, the coolest part was watching Brandon pilot an airplane! It was truly incredible watching him for take off and landing. Such an awesome experience. I can’t wait for the next time.

We took off from Dare County Airport on Roanoke Island. The plane was a four seater Cessna.

Brandon took two groups, first his girlfriend Keli and mom Diane, and the second group was Steve and me.

It was really cool to watch him pilot an airplane.

The monument you see down below is the Wright Brothers’ monument at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk.

Close to the shore there’s a dark spot in the water- that’s a shipwreck!

I love this shot – the memorial in the distance, the beach and a banner plane towards the bottom in the foreground.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

The Cape from above!

This is where we made our turn to head back up the coast.

From that point on, the view out my window was of the ocean. With the haze it made it difficult to see the horizon. It was pretty trippy.

Me, Steve and Brandon! Safely on the ground. Such a cool experience.

Thanks Brandon for sharing this with us! It was really incredible, words don’t quite do it justice.

Now we’re back home, well rested and I’m ready to tackle the second (and much busier) half of wedding season. Bring it on!