OBX!!!

Ever since we moved to Virginia, we have heard about this great place called the Outer Banks, NC. We finally made it out there for a little bit of relaxation. We had a great time with the Evans, the McGlaughlins, and the Mitchells. We rented a massive beach house and settled in for a great week. Unfortunately our first three days were rain and tornado warnings. I didn't know that there were so many tornado warnings out here. But it was a great week of relaxation and fun (a week for mom and Claire and a few days for papa).

The drive down was rough. Rough I say. Claire did not bring her A game. But we love her the same. But after that, Claire did bring it for the rest of the week. We had a great mother's day. All the girls at the house repeatedly chanted, "Nate's in trouble." I convinced them that I had forgotten a mothers day gift. I had not. Luckily Rich was on the ball and organized Salmon Filet, CusCus, Asparagus, Rolls, and Strawberry Shortcake.

As I do have to get to bed now, I will sum up the pictures and hopefully edit the post later. If not, at least you have them.




I woke up a few mornings in hope of a great sunrise. One morning I woke up really early, got in the car, drove up the coast to take a picture of the lighthouse with the sunrise. It was a total waste. I found the lighthouse... about 1/2 mile from the beach in a location that I couldn't get to and definitely couldn't get a picture. I was tired.

Mom and Dad finally gave in and let me play in the cabinet. I love opening up drawers and cabinets and pulling out everything!
We had a great day at the beach! Talk about an all-star cast. Nice job team

In a total of 4 families there were 8 kids (luckily the beach house was three stories so we didn't go too crazy during the rain storms). All 8 were girls. I wanted to get a picture with all of them, but this was as good as it gets.

Claire had loved playing in the sand.

Yes, this is papa in action. Believe me, the ocean was cold. I made a sprint into the ocean and I am happy that Hill was able to document it. This is a shot of me high-stepping over the wave. I pretty much resurrected some of my long-lost high school football skills.

Claire wasn't as excited about the water as she was the sand.


After a very windy excursion to the sand dunes, we stopped for ice cream at Dairy Queen. Just so everyone knows, $5 WalMart kites do not fly. Just bite the bullet and pay the 12 bucks at the kite store to get a kite that flies. Frugality does not always pay.

It's a PicNic

We are coming to you tonight from the state of Virginia where we are under an official tornado warning (we were just upgraded from the watch). We are currently experiencing one of the heaviest rainstorms that I have ever seen. It is really quite amazing. Hopefully the tornados hold off.

I have to say right now that Hill and I are addicted to the TV show Lost. We just finished up another intense episode. If anyone is looking to waste a bunch of time, or really looking for a new TV show to get hooked on, we highly recommend picking up the first few seasons and catching up. If there ever was a show with more twists and turns, I haven't found it. Definitely the most unpredictable show I know of. Anyways, two enthusiastic thumbs up.

I wanted to share this picture that Mandy Caroll took of me and Claire. Typically I am the one taking the pictures so it feels good to be on the other end. Thanks Mandy (her blog address is off to the left).


Yesterday I had the day off prior to working a night shift last night. I came up with a brilliant idea... a picnic at Pleasant Grove park. I had these visions of a leisurely stroll down to the river where we would find a nice grassy knoll and we would all sit down for a feast of pb and j, applesauce, string cheese, and teddy grahams with frosting. Things went well, but not that well.

Being the good parents that we are, we of course forgot both the sunscreen and the sun hat. Brilliant. We kept trying to hold the blanket up over her, but she wanted nothing to do with it. Finally we just had to tie it to her head. She didn't like that either, but we were able to get a good picture out of it. It was a hot, sunny day and it felt great.


This is Claire's reaction when I told her that this was our picnic spot. She laughed uncontrollably and mama wanted nothing to do with it. We weren't familiar with the area and Claire was getting wrestless (actually it was mama). Claire is always up for a good laugh.



This is now one of my new favorite pictures of Claire. She was intent on getting to the river, but of course her efforts were thwarted.


"Did you just see that frog dad? That was cool."



We quickly ended our trip to the river as I was being bit by bugs and Hill really wanted to eat (I am telling you, you don't want to cross Hill when she hasn't eaten). We made it back up to the car and found a nice piece of grass to enjoy our picnic feast. Everyone relaxed a little when there was food moving into their tummies. Funny enough there were actually a few ants crawling around on our blanket. Even funnier was watching Claire trying to catch them.


Just a few pictures of Claire that we wanted to share. She is so stinkin' cute in her overalls.



Hill thinks that she looks so much like me. Poor little girl. Thank you mom and Claire for such a fun family outing. Looking forward to alot more.

Here is a photograph to document a little run in that Claire and I had last night. I was in charge of feeding her and she was not cooperating. She had fallen asleep in the car on the way home from our picnic and decided that that was her afternoon nap. So by the time dinner time came around, she was done. You will notice food all over her and her high chair. She wont take a bottle. She won't take a sippy. So, in order to get her to drink water, I sometimes use a medicine dropper and squirt it into her mouth. She did well for the first few minutes, but then she stopped cooperating. So, I squirted her in the head. And then I squirted her again. She thought it was pretty funny. Luckily for me I was heading out the door to work right after that. Mom got to take care of the bath. Thanks mom. We love you.

Just so everyone knows, the tornado warning has passed.

We are so excited for the upcoming few weeks. We are off to the Outer Banks on saturday. Stay tuned for some fun pictures from our trip. Unil then....