Outer Banks, NC

So, we're home.

I'm not happy about it.

Spending a week in a sleepy fishing village in an ocean front house is kind of WAY BETTER than sitting in front of a fan on Memorial Day weekend in Pittsburgh, the smell of grilled hotdogs and car fumes permeating everything.

I'm already getting ready to book our house for next year.

There was a campground in Hatteras, NC with these tiny, colorful cottages.  I went out of my way to drive past them every day, because I mean.  LOOK AT THEM.  Cutest things ever.

 

 Heading to the Farmer's Market in the town of Manteo on Roanoke Island.  It's every Saturday in the spring, summer and fall next to the Maritime Museum.  We bought beets and peas, strawberries, spring mix, tomatoes, garlic and herbs.  I wore my flashy dress that Scouty and Louise bought me for Mother's Day.

  Scouty looking out over the water at the Elizabethan Gardens on Roanoke.  It was so quiet and still, there.  Do you know about The Lost Colony?  We were right next door in the gardens that were built to entertain Queen Elizabeth.  It was so quiet and beautifully spooky.

 One of the fishing piers in Hatteras.  At 4 o'clock every day, you can go down to the piers and watch the fishing boats come in, and see what they caught.  They bring in some pretty amazing things.

 My beach baby having one of the "free-est days of her life."

Uh, so you KNOW I rock a fat girl bathing suit.  I can't even explain to you how freeing it was to waltz around with no clothes on after a gray Pittsburgh winter.

 Louisey, getting her sea legs.

 Boarding the Miss Hatteras for our fabulous, sunset Dolphin Cruise that made me so sick I was hanging off the back of the boat.  

The boat ride was kind of amazing, though.  It took me at least an hour to turn green.  We were on the top deck, sailing through choppy water.  People were screaming, water was splashing everywhere.  It was better than being on a roller coaster.  We didn't see any dolphins, but it didn't matter.  It was so thrilling, until I was scrambling around in the cabin, looking for a bathroom so that I didn't have to barf in front of the tan young boat mates.  I opened a door that I thought might lead to one, and it was a closet.  Oars and nets came tumbling out, burying me in fishing gear.

 The Flying Melon Cafe on Ocracoke Island is wonderful.  We had sweet potato pancakes and beet salad for brunch, and it was AMAZING.  I think maybe it was the cutest restaurant I've ever been to.

 Mommy and girls on the beautiful, secluded beaches on Ocracoke Island.  I am in love with the Ocracoke shore.  The beach is shallow and perfect for tiny swimmers who aren't so sure they love the "big guy" waves.  Also, it is a protected stretch of land, so there aren't any houses or businesses as far as the eye can see.  It's pretty much paradise.

(By the way, mamas, get out there this summer, put on your bathing suits and quit obsessing about your bodies!  I promise you that we love you and find you SO beautiful, just the way you are, right now.)

 The first day we arrived, Louise was so freaked out by the sand that she just SCREAMED like she was being tortured.  By the end of the week, she was a little water baby.

I didn't want to come back.  The fact that we left Kurt at home was the only thing stopping me from applying for a job at Midvale's Restaraunt when I found a Help Wanted ad at the post office.  I reached out to rip it from the cork board, let my fingers hover over the curling corner of the paper.  I could waitress and we could live in one of the little colorful cottages at the camp ground.  We could learn to love sea food and buy dramamine by the case and become hearty fisherwomen.  I mean it.  I was going to do it; run away to the ocean and you would have never heard my name again.  

There's only one thing we love more than island life, and that's daddy.  He was even worth a thirteen hour drive with a baby who wouldn't sleep and kept crying for bananas, even though she doesn't like bananas, has NEVER liked bananas and wouldn't have eaten a banana in a million years.  OH.  MY.  GOD.

But we made it.  You win, Pittsburgh.  We'll stay.  But, don't blame us for being grumpy for a while.

PS.  I also can't promise that this is the last you'll see of our vacation pictures.