Category: Travel

Our next day at the beach was filled with sun, sand, food, fun, reading, relaxing and listening to the kids laugh. Amelie was pretty scared of going near the water and Mike was very patient and tried to make it fun for her. They walked along the beach together and he would take her in the water and he reminded her that she was safe with him.

Josie loved this bucket and she was so funny playing games.

The Hameloth’s had a couple shovels and Nadia loved it so much that Mike took her out to get one too. The girls would dig and dig and crack themselves up.

The boys dug this hole and once Amelie climbed in, she was in her happy place. She spent the rest of this day in the hole playing and playing.

The boys also found some horseshoe crabs and Nadia had fun holding them and watching them swim around in the bucket.

I brought crafts for the girls to do in the evening and I tried to make them beach or sea themed. We started with little fuzzy poster style magnets.

I think they really jazzed up the fridge in the rental house!

In the fall of 2011 our friends the Hameloth’s invited us to join them in September 2012 in the Outer Banks, NC. On our first night of driving we made it all the way to Nashville, TN. We arrived after dark on Sunday night and we had such a fun time catching up for the first time on American soil! Lynnea and I “met” online while we waited to be matched in 2010. Then we were in China together to adopt Amelie and Ava.

The next morning we woke to beautiful skies and a practically empty beach. We have always taken beach vacations during the summer and I was in the Outer Banks about 12 hours before I was convinced that off season was the only way to go. In the next 24 hours I was ready to move to the Outer Banks. Ha!

LOOK at the empty beach. It was fantastic!

This photo sums up how happy my heart was on this week of vacation. Seeing the kids playing together and having a blast.

This was Josie’s first trip to the beach and she was so happy and had a ton of fun digging in the sand.

Lena and Nadia were like 2 peas in a pod the whole week and it was adorable to see their friendship blossom.

Steve and the girls playing Uno.

This photo was taken after Travis and Jared showed Nadia the stop motion video they made for her birthday gift. We had a great first day at the beach!

I know it’s 5 months late, but I am finally going through all of our beach vacation photos. I decided I would start this series of posts with my L-O-V-E of Duck Donuts. Thanks to our friends Randy and Jessica we knew to look for this place when we got to the Outer Banks, NC.

This is the key to the wonderfulness that this place is – they make the donuts to order. Once they come out hot, then they add the glaze and topping of your choice in any combination. Let me just say OH.MY!

Dipping station.

The kids eating their first Duck Donuts.

Our first box of Duck Donuts. Now here is a true confession: We went grocery shopping after Duck Donuts. By the time we finished that I was ready for another one so I asked Mike to stop back by for me to get one more before we went home. And that was just the first day! I found my favorite combination on day one – chocolate and peanut butter glaze with peanuts on top.

Then we went nearly every day of the trip. There is a slight chance that I had a momentary addiction to these on our trip 😉