OBX Beach Trip

Kevin and I joined 6 other couples for a trip to the beach over Labor Day weekend this year.  14 adults and 2 babies in a house.  These couples are our Bible study group, but they're so much more than that.  They're our friends.  They're the people we see each Wednesday night from 6:30pm-9:30pm, or 10pm, or 11pm...  They know our prayers and our praises.  They laugh with us and cry with us.  We all drove up to Corolla in the Outer Banks and we had THE BEST WEEKEND of all time!

Unfortunately, Kevin and I had to work for the majority of the day on Friday, so we didn't hit the road until 4:30pm...with the rain and the Friday afternoon traffic, we were a bit delayed getting down to the Outer Banks.  We had a great ride down, arriving just after dark.  Everyone was there already relaxing and having fun!  The guys were down in the game room playing ping pong and pool.  The ladies were upstairs on the deck with wine, just enjoying the night breezes.  As soon as we came in the door, we were ushered to the master bedroom and given a plate of delicious food.  Now that's AWESOME!  I found us the house...spending hours on the computer each week searching diligently for a house with at least 7 bedrooms, in a reasonable budget, and striking out time and time again.  When I found this one, I was so excited!  There were queen beds for everyone except one couple in a twin room and I planned to be that couple.  I wanted everyone else to have a great stay.  Well, our great friends honored us by giving us the master bedroom and it really touched my heart.  They wanted to bless me for doing so much work to find the house.  WOW!  We were the last to arrive and got the master.  That's love!

The Best Weekend Ever started then!  The girls ate dessert at the big kitchen table.  The guys made up a game they played in the pool.  The girls got in the hot tub.  It was awesome!

Saturday morning a group of us went over to climb Currituck Lighthouse.  The weather all weekend called for 80%-100% chance of rain.  It was clear that morning and I wanted to get our climb in.  We had no line, so we were able to go straight to the top...

...and we witnessed a miraculous rainbow over the sound once we go up there.  It was beautiful!  One more NC Lighthouse checked off the bucket list! 

Pretty soon we made our way back to the house and had the most delicious breakfast!  YUM!  Then it was time for the beach!  It wasn't raining so we all got geared up and made our way down.  It was terribly windy and the first gust took our umbrella out before Kevin even opened it all the way.  After sitting in the sand and taking a walk on the beach, the girls came back to all of our belongings in a pile up on the dunes...a huge wave had come and gotten everything.

That was it for most of us!  We packed up our stuff and headed back to the house.  Luckily we had a pool, so it was straight to the pool.  Many of us took naps.  I took advantage of the time to read the book I brought down.

A few of us took a walk on the beach before dinner...it was just perfect!  I loved the little crabs everywhere!

Eventually it was time for dinner.  We all gathered around the table for a big dinner.  That was my favorite time just being with everyone at the huge table!

While a little fuzzy, this is the only shot with at least some piece of all of us.

Sunday morning we all got up and had bacon and eggs and pancakes.  Delicious!

Then it was time for a group picture before we hit the beach again.

Good looking group there!

Again, rain was in the forecast and again, no rain came.  We stayed on the beach for awhile and then finally went back to the house to make some lunch.  We hung by the pool and relaxed a bit again.  

Some folks took naps again and I kept reading!  We started some board games and I made some rainbow chip cupcakes for everyone.  We were supposed to have burgers for dinner, but they were frozen solid.  We waited and waited and finally it was too late, so some of the ladies whipped up some salads and we had some leftovers.

That night I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning finishing my book before I went to sleep.  Does that scream vacation to anyone else?

Monday morning we got up and enjoyed some eggs Benedict on an English muffin and Duck Donuts.  Yumm!

 

Then we got ready for our wild horse tour.  It was so awesome being able to ride up to Carova and see the horses in the yards around the houses or on the dirt roads.  I couldn't believe how many people were up on the beach there.  Such a different world!

After our tour, we went back to pack up the house and had burgers for lunch before everyone said goodbye.  It was the BEST WEEKEND EVER!  Not a drop of rain.  Everyone got along.  It was so much fun!  We're already planning our next trip together and I can't wait!  It was a perfect Labor Day Weekend!