EMERALD ISLE
Every year we take a week long vacation to Emerald Isle, NC. We always stay in the same house and now the kids think of it as “our” beach house. This is the second time we’ve had to deal with a hurricane- I think we will DEFINITELY be buying travel insurance from now on!
Sunday, 8/29- Greeting the Ocean.
Monday, 8/30- Put Put Golfing
Savannah LOVED put putting!!! She was very, very serious about it and really tried to get her ball in the hole. It was super funny to see her take this SO seriously!
Lyra spent her time at the golf course working on her beauty sleep.
Kip took these pictures of Lyra during the day- they are some of my favorites!
Tuesday, 8/31- With Hurricane Earl coming in on Thursday night, we had a feeling that if we wanted to get out to Cape Lookout we had better do it early in the week. It was a good thing we went on Tuesday morning because on Wednesday the Coast Guard ordered all commercial boats out of the water. We took the Harkers’ Island Ferry out to Cape Lookout and then took a 20 minute truck ride across the island and all the way out to the Southern most point in the Ocean. I think the impending storm was really throwing up the shells because the shelling was FABULOUS. Another family that went at the same time we did had the foresight to bring trash bags with them for hauling back shells. They found welks the size of basketballs! We found lots of good shells but between wearing Lyra, carrying a back pack with essentials in it & helping Savannah- we didn’t have much room for any big shells. There were literally millions of shells, piled up in large mounds on the beach left from high tide. It was amazing. Below, Mary & Nathan are fishing with Kip and our truck driver.
Wild horses on Cape Lookout.
Lou Lou after we got back from Cape Lookout- utterly worn out!
Evening stroll at sunset on our beach-
Piles of smaller shells washed up on the beach in front of our house- this is more than we normally see but I think it was the result of Hurricane Earl coming in.
For the first time ever, Nathan found a starfish! We’ve never found one before and he was so thrilled. However, on Saturday, after Hurricane Earl had passed, we found hundreds of dead starfish washed up on the beach. We brought back probably 50 of them.
Wednesday, 9/1- This was probably one of the best things that happened while we were at the beach. “Our” house is an ocean front house so it is up on stilts and you park underneath the house. Kip & Nathan were under the house taking the trash out when they found this “treasure map” that was made by a previous family and left behind. Of course, the kids were SO excited and wanted to immediately go and dig up the treasure. Kip convinced them that we should eat lunch first and then hunt for it after nap. While they were sleeping he snuck out to our favorite local toystore and bought a wooden pirate chest and filled it with all sorts of stuff- gummy sharks, pirate games, eye patch, flag, etc. There was a “hidden” compartment in the bottom that he put gold coins in and some gold foil wrapped chocolates. Kip went out and buried the treasure according to the map and used sticks to make an “X” marks the spot. Below are the pictures of their treasure hunt- you can imagine how super excited they were! I think it was as much fun for Kip & I as it was for the kids!
Ready to go dig up the treasure- Mary & Nathan are making their best pirate faces.
“X” marks the spot!
Hauling it up to the house for inspection.
At the NC Maritime Museum- our favorite museum!
Thursday, 9/2- Kip and I were sitting out on our porch late Wednesday night when our next-door neighbor came over and told us a mandatory evacuation had been announced starting at 5am the next morning. We packed up the majority of the house that night because we were not sure we would be able to come back. We were out by 7am and headed to New Bern, NC- we had a room reserved at the Hampton Inn for that night. We got to the hotel around 8:00am and they were nice enough to go ahead and let us in the room. We got settled, fed the baby and then headed out to see New Bern. We toured the lovely Tryon Palace with its’ gorgeous gardens, had lunch, and then headed back to the hotel for naps. Hurricane Earl came through late that night but no real damage was done and we were able to get back into our beach house by 10am Friday morning.
Kids in front of Tryon Palace.
Gardens at Tryon Palace.
This reminded me of that book, “The Secret Garden”. I was walking along a path with Mary & Nathan and we came to a brick wall with a gate- we stepped through the gate and found this GORGEOUS garden completely unexpected. The kids played here for a long time- it was just beautiful!
Savvy, all tuckered out on Daddy’s shoulders- ready for lunch and a nap.
Saturday, 9/4- We got back to our house Friday morning and spent most of the rest of the next two days on the beach.
NC Acquarium at Pine Knoll Shores.
Some of the shells and starfish we brought home.
