As our last summer adventure (before school and life responsibilities start) we rented a beach house with 8 other families in the Outer Banks. We knew some friends from church but others we were meeting for the first time when we arrived. It was SUCH a fun week of sun and sand!

Hover over images to see their captions – I’m trying a new way of doing galleries on here :) Click on the image to open larger.

On the way down we stopped to visit friends in VA. We hadn’t seen Curtis and Eileen or their kids in several years and it was so nice to catch up.

We were in Waves, NC and spent most of the week at the beach with trips to the sound side of the island, a visit to Duck Donuts and popping into various touristy shops. The kids wore life jackets any time we were at the ocean as the waves were pretty intense (best for body boarding too!) They’ve both become more confident in pools this summer and swam really well back at the beach house. Each family pretty much did their own things during the day and came back together for dinners or an outing.

Andy enjoyed fishing and bumming on the beach. I loved the slower pace and down time, I even finished 3 books! One had a terrible ending though :-P

We headed home after one week at the beach. Longest drive ever, but we made it. Kitties were so snuggly when we got home and we even had a few days to recover before real life caught up with us.

I’m so thankful we had the chance to hang out with friends (some old, some new) and rock the end of our summer. Ironically when we got home, the temp was 54* and when we left the Outer Banks it had been 94* Never the less, beachy memories will keep us warm as we head into fall. Best family vacation ever!!