Bay Breeze Redux

  Three summers ago, we spent a week in Emerald Isle on the back end of quite possibly the best two week vacation ever.  Actually, it was my only two week vacation so it's not hard to be at the top of the list.  All of that vacation was chronicled on this blog.  The week spent on the beach was hard to plan again for the Donovan family, mostly because we were still living in Utah.  With the move back East, I knew it would be much more of a possibility and sure enough we were able to make it a reality this summer.  The idea was first discussed way back at Christmas, because I knew we had to book a house in February or March it order to get the best selection.  We decided to stick to Emerald Isle again, because it's a fairly central location and it gives the North Carolina Donovans the flexibility if they need to travel back and forth to home/work.  After looking at way too many houses for the one with all the needs, correct bedding configurations, swimming pool, beach proximity and so forth...we kept ending up back to the house we stayed at 3 years ago, Bay Breeze.  So we booked it for the first week of July, and that was that.

The week we chose ended up being perfectly timed because we had some more weather woes just prior to leaving.  In our first year living here, we've had an earthquake, hurricane, tropical storm with flooding...and now a derecho.  I had never heard of it, and never even suspected it would be so damaging.  We were very lucky, but others were not.  We only had some branches down, but others had trees crush their houses.  We didn't end up so lucky on the power outages this time though.  It went out on Friday night, and didn't come back on until Tuesday.  That's why the timing of our beach week was so perfect - we only had to endure a little over a day of no power and then we headed to the beach to a house with electricity.  Before we left though, our biggest concern was Rudy. We were hesitant to leave him home without power, but the other options were far from ideal so we did.  Luckily, we can monitor our thermostat remotely so we knew when the power came back on, and that it was only 84 degrees in the house when power was restored.  Rudy survived the week and we needn't have worried.  

The week in terms of descriptions was very similar to the last visit.  The weather was great...typical beach weather but perhaps a bit more humid and windy than we would have liked.  No rainy days though, aside from a set of thunderstorms the first night.  We went to the beach almost every day.  We swam in the pool every day, sometimes multiple times a day.  I got in a few short runs (3-4 miles) in very humid, windy conditions.  The kids enjoyed playing with their cousins, and there was a new addition to run around with them this time.  Adelia still lights up at the sight of Quinn, and he helps take care of her.  Keely is a great help as well.  The other big kids would stay in bed late but not Keely - when she heard Adelia up, she headed upstairs to play and take care of her.  She is most definitely going to make a great babysitter in a few years!  We rented kayaks again, and had fun in the sound and visiting 'our island'.  The big kids went out for a night on the town with Uncle Ryan - complete with seeing 'Brave' in the movie theater, wading in the ocean and mini-golf.  We went to the beach to watch the local fireworks show, and also saw lots of amateur shows up and down the beach. 

The week was made a little more interesting by the celebration of Tom & Judith's 10 year anniversary at the end of the week.  We got to meet Judith's two sisters and their families, enjoy some traditional Jamaican meals, and be a part of their vow renewal.  We weren't at their wedding so it was nice to be a part of this special day. 

We all had a fun week.  It didn't go too fast, or too slow - I think it was just right.  I love beach vacations, living in my bathing suit and just relaxing.  The kids are happy with with low-key aspect of it, and I think we'll get a few more years of that before they want more.  Mostly, they are happy playing with their cousins.  I love that we can give them these memories, and it's yet again another reinforcement of the decision to move closer to our family.  There was already talk of where to go next.  Speaking for myself, I am done with Emerald Isle for a bit.  I think we need a change of pace...I'd love to go back to Outer Banks, or Hilton Head.  We're also talking about a mountain getaway too.  I don't know where it will be, but I know I'm looking forward to the next time we're all together :)