Beach Baby

We're back from our first family vacation. Everyone had a great time... especially Rusty. He loved the beach and even went to a "Yappy Hour" at a local pet store ("Outer Barks"). The photo at the left was taken at the party. I'm holding a "Pupcasso" painting that Rusty made with his paws and Katie even helped out with a hand print.

We had 2 beautiful sunny days and got to spend some time on the beach. The other days were rainy or cold/windy. On our first full day, the low was 51 which set a record. It's nice to be a part of history.

The drive down to Duck went well. Katie slept most of the way (she woke up about 4 hours into the trip and wanted food... NOW!). Rusty was uneasy in the car (he always is) and promptly vomited in the house when we walked in. He was fine after that. We somehow managed to fit everything into the Saab. Now we understand why people buy such big cars. We decided that we couldn't buy anything in Duck unless we threw something away first. Luckily, we managed to fit everything for the return trip too. The drive back took 7 hours because Katie wanted a leisurely meal just outside of Richmond and then traffic was really bad after Fredericksburg (big surprise).

We all mostly hung out at the house and alternated between reading, watching tv/movies, eating, going for walks, or shopping. It was very leisurely and relaxing. Nancy and I had a sort of Freaky Friday-ish transformation though. Usually she's happy hanging out and reading on the beach and I'm itching to go out and do something. However, this time I was perfectly content sitting in a comfy chair but she wanted to go do stuff. Fortunately, there wasn't much to do except eat seafood, pulled pork bbq, and pizza fries. Mmmm!

The first time Katie went to the beach she cried. She doesn't like the beach when it's cold and windy. When the sun came out she had more fun. Rusty absolutely loved the beach and was running all over it. He was willing to get his paws wet but not much more. He also liked rolling around in the sand and making sand angels. He may have a new career as a critic -- one of the first things he did on the beach was to walk up to a sand castle and pee on it.

The house we rented was very nice. Not too big and it had a nice wrap-around deck. Rusty had his own twin bed in our room but he preferred to sleep in our bed. We grilled out a few nights and went out the other nights. On our last night we had a big clambake with shrimp, crab legs, scallops, potatos, and corn on the cob. Yum! No clams though so I guess it was technically an everything-but-a-clam-bake.

The town of Duck was pretty quiet and the beaches had a handful of people but not much. The owner of our favorite bbq place (near the Corolla Lighthouse) said that mid-May and mid-October are the best times to come to the Outer Banks. The summer is very hot and humid and very crowded.

So even though we had some not-so-beachy days, it was nice to not fight the crowds and to hang out and enjoy being a family.