Howe Emerald Isle Beach Bash 2019

Be prepared for another long post!! At the end of July we flew from Seattle to Raleigh to North Carolina to meet up with the Howe family for a beach bash reunion. Most of the family arrived the day we could check into our beach house, but coming from the west coast we needed more time and flew in a day early. That gave us some time in Raleigh on Saturday morning to go to a fun museum before driving to the Outer Banks!

MARBLES CHILDREN'S MUSEUM - we are making great use of our ASTC passport card this year! We used it here in North Carolina to get free admission to this fun children's museum. There was so much to do and see here and the kids had such a fun time.

Sophie's favorite was this vet station where you had to follow a care plan to treat several different animals. 

Davey has always loved farms and used this little wheelbarrow to harvest all the pretend food, and then carry it around so no one else could use it :)

Crab soccer! We thought these were fun to dress up in since we were beach bound in just a few hours. 

AT THE BEACH - it's about a 3 hour drive from Raleigh to the coast, which always feel long coming right after a long flight, but it's always worth it once you arrive. The North Carolina beaches are so pretty!! And since it is such a trek to get there, it keeps the crowds away and makes for a very relaxing week. 

The kids ran down our boardwalk to get a better view of the ocean when we arrived

Poor Charlie had a few run-ins with the ocean. The picture on the left is after he got hit in the face with a wave and it slicked his hair back and then it dried that way. Ha! On the right was after he did a face plant in the sand. Poor kid. 

Sophie really must be part mermaid. She loves the ocean and sand and can spend hours playing in the water and building creations. 

Best Beach Cousins

Cute baby footprints

Charlie found this little fish at high tide and carried it around in his shovel for a long time until another wave came and washed it back out to sea. 

We had a few good wave riding days. Unfortunately there were only 2 boards for our whole crew, so you had to be an opportunist to get a chance on one, which is how I ended up boogie boarding during a storm once. 

Dave with his boys

Davey was happiest on shore playing on the sand. He ventured into the ocean a few times, but it was still a little much for him and preferred to stay on dry land. 

No big sand sculptre from our crew this time, but we did dig a big swimming hole that filled up when the tide came in and the kids had a blast rolling around in it and jumping in from the side. 

Some cousin time

FISHING ON THE PIER - most of our time is just spent at the beach, but we did make a few outings during our week. The first was a fathers & sons fishing trip to the pier. Davey caught his first fish, and then caught 9 more! He was the leader for the day!

GRANDMA BETTY CATAMARAN MEMORIAL CRUISE - one of the main focuses for the week was the memorial for Dave's grandma, who passed last year. We went on a sunset catamaran cruise to spread her ashes and remember her wonderful life. It was a special evening to be together as a family.

On the way to the docks we stopped at a drive-in for some yummy food

In our matching reunion shirts getting ready to board the catamaran in Beaufort

Cousin Liam bought a pirate set in town before boarding and the kids had the best time taking turns with all the accessories, pretending to be pirates. Afterward we bought Davey his own set since he had so much fun dressing up. 

Using his pirate hook to throw away everyone's empty cups

This night was also our 13th wedding anniversary - happy marriage to us!

SAND DOLLAR ISLAND EXPEDITION - Grandma, grandpa and Liz took all the cousins 6 and older on an adventure to look for sand dollars. They were gone all day. The took a ferry out to the island and then waded around in the warm, shallow water to search for sand dollars. Sophie brought home a few beautiful ones!

PINE KNOLL SHORES AQUARIUM - every other year we visit the little island aquarium. It's nice to take a break from the sun and sand for a few hours and the kids love seeing all the different creatures. Charlie was so amazed that we could hardly get him to move on from the very first tank to see the rest of the aquarium. He probably said "fish!" at least 100 times.

Recreating a picture of the not so little "littles" from 4 years ago. The original is here. We guessed on the order of the kids, but got it right!

Petting a stingray

Cute Charlie Crab

It was crazy to me to think there are otters out there the same size as Sophie!

And then it was suddenly time to head back home. I made Dave sit on a row with all the kids while I sat all by myself. It was payback for all the solo flights I had made with the boys and luggage, while he only had to handle Sophie. Of course it didn't last too long, because Charlie is a momma's boy and ended up back on my lap after just a short time. At least he decided to take a nap this time

Beach Video Clips

Emerald Isle Beach Trip 2017

From Seattle we flew all the way across the country to North Carolina for a Howe family trip on Emerald Isle. We spent the first night in a hotel, and then drove out to the coast the next morning to our beach house! We had an amazing house this year with plenty of space for the whole family and even a hot tub on the back deck! There was also a closet stocked with chairs, boogie boards, sand toys, and a kite so we had plenty to keep the kids busy.

Sophie had a great week with her cousins and it's amazing how much smoother the trip went now that the three "littles" (Sophie, Emma, and Liam) are older. We went with them as babies, and then as two year olds, and now they are four and able to be semi-independent. They had a blast playing in the sand and waves every day and they happy moments definitely out numbered the breakdowns. Davey loved being around his older boy cousins and especially bonded with Jack. Wherever Jack was during the week, Davey was not far behind!

Waiting to board one of our flights. They did great, but I'm glad we don't have to travel coast to coast on a regular basis - it makes for a long, tiring day.

These three hit the beach pretty much as soon as we got there

Enjoying the hot tub! It was nice to take a dip after the beach to warm up and wash off residual sand

There was a miscommunication with the rental company and the pack-n-play we had arranged for Davey never showed up. We ended up building him this cage in a closet out of baby gates, and it worked well enough that we just canceled the crib and let him sleep here for the week. 

So many shells and treasures to find!

My Beach Boys

Sophie "baked" lots of cakes and other desserts for us during the week

We found out there was a sand castle competition for our stretch of beach so the family got together to create this rather large sand sculpture. We ended up placing second!

There were several turtle nests down the beach from us that we were hoping would hatch during our stay. A group we trek down to the next each night to check if there was any progress. We saw baby turtles once a few years ago and it was really neat to watch them march down to the water, but no luck this year.

Enjoying a beach rainbow off the back porch one morning

Grandpa made a DQ run and brought back a whole bag of Dilly Bars. Everyone knows that Dillies make you silly, and messy!

Davey and his buddy Jack. He loved to sit on his lap to watch videos of babies and puppies :)

We had lots of wind, which is great for flying kites!

Sophie requested to be made into a sand alligator

Our last night at the beach. We took the kids down in their pajamas for a quick photo, which turned into playtime, and of course they ended up very sandy and wet

The Howe Family - photo taken by a kind stranger from the house next door who saw us trying to balance a cell phone on a table in the rain and ran over to help

Another big trip meant another 100+ photos, so here's the full album in the Emerald Isle Beach Trip 2017 video. Plus the videos have been fun to have and the kids really enjoy watching them, so I'll probably keep making them whenever we have something big going on.