Monday at the Outer Banks

It's been a good day. 

Woke up to wonderful quietness; all I hear from my room is the gentle lapping of the small waves in the ocean sound as they playfully hop over the shallow sandbar, a mere twenty feet or so from my bedroom window.  

Enjoyed coffee with a view...

Lazed around inside awhile, set up my traveling art studio at the dining room table...

                 ...then went outside with the kids to explore the shallow waters on the sandbar.

Soon their interests led us to the pool, so we checked it out, dipped our feet in...

...observed the rules...(note the funny sign:  "OOL Rules; Notice there's no "P" in it. Let's keep it that way!")

We drove to a surf rental place and rented a 2-seater kayak, woo-hoo!

After lunch I took a nap...in the pool.  ;=D

Then Sam and I pretended we were Christopher Columbus and his assistant as we explored the waters and woodsy areas we found out on our boat ride.

Even found a slithering water mocassin looping around in the water by these rocks.

(look out, Colby!)

Next on our schedule: pretending we were lost in the Sahara desert as we traversed the windblown slopes of sand at Jockey's Ridge.

..and i don't know if this video clip of the dunes will work...but here it is anyway:

just a nice day of vacation. 

got a lot on my mind right now, (perhaps i'll share them at another time, another blog..)

so it's just nice to be in a peaceful place,

especially this bedroom that I can call MINE. mommy's room. at least for this week.

Where I can go in and close the door, ahhhhhh, and just be alone. so nice. 

goodnight!!!

Off to the Outer Banks!!!

Sunday, May 24th, 2015

And the 2015 family beach trip to the Outer Banks, NC has begun!  It’s 2:18 pm and we’re still circling the Raleigh beltline, heading to the coast on 64 East.  Getting a late start, always takes soooo long to get packed up for these trips, especially when kids get whiny and hungry and ornery and you can’t just focus on packing the whole time, oh well.

I’m writing in the front seat next to the driver, not exactly a private place for journaling, so I’ll be keeping this light for now.  

Pandora shuffle serving up some Katy Perry and Fleetwood Mac so far.  (insert photo of my zoned-out travel mode look…)  I’ve got some good books to read and the kids are set up with a movie on the iPad,and all’s well so far.  Time to zone out…. later alligator.

Speaking of alligators...it’s 3 hours later now, and we just crossed the very long bridge over the Alligator River!  Getting closer to our destination…

..crossed another bridge and finally arrived in Nags Head.

Beautiful sunsets over the sound, enjoyed right from our patio.

And the best part so far...I get to stay ALL BY MYSELF in this cute little bedroom!

more tomorrow...i'm exhausted. 

goodnight.

New releases on vine..

So I've been indulging in one of favorite sources of amusement...my guilty pleasure... It's vining while driving! Stay tuned for more fragments of creepy car tunes!!!

Check out jennifer nelson's post on Vine! https://vine.co/v/eqMH25zMjTK

vacation preview

It's vacation time again!!!  Almost, anyway...this is just a preview of where we'll be next week at this time.  Instead of our usual trek down to the southeastern NC beaches, this time we'll be traveling up to the northeast and checking out the Outer Banks!  I've only been there once before, almost 15 years ago..so this should be fun.



Another change, is that instead of staying on the open ocean side, as close to the beach as possible, this time we're renting a condo right on the sound, where this is the actual view from our private patio, at sunset:



And in the morning, we awake to this, lots of grassy space for the kids to play, and a long pier from which to fish or put in a boat.



My plan so far: to rent a sea kayak and do some exploring!! (on the calm waters of course, my near-death experience kayaking on crazy river rapids long ago are holding me back from trying out the open ocean just yet!!!)





For more details on the condo unit we'll be staying in, you can look here:


https://www.sunrealtync.com/outer-banks/nags-head-nc-rentals/sound-front/vil-g1

One great thing about this condo, is that it has 3 bedrooms, and I get to have this bedroom with 2 twin beds in it, ALL TO MYSELF!!!!  YAAAAAAASSSSS!!!!  And, the best part of that is I was not the one to boldly initiate that decision.  (yee-haw! small success, perhaps? am i getting through?)  man, i swear, if i could bug this condo with a spycam, we could start our own Keeping up with the Karashians-type of reality show... the awkwardness, the tense moments, the slight chill to my voice as I learn to become my own person and stop saying yes just to freaking please others!!!  (yet i do it all in brotherly love, of course...(smirk)).  We'll call it...Keeping Up with the Awkwards, or the Dysfunctionals, or the Someday-to-be-Ex's...or something like that.



ok enough of that.  On to some of the activities that await us there...

For a safe look at some beautiful ocean creatures, we may visit the North Carolina Aquarium at Manteo...
http://www.ncaquariums.com/roanoke-island



...or if that's too tame for us, we'll just hit the beach and hope to meet this jolly ol fellow..




ha ha!  or not. Actually these gentle sweeties would be a bit more fun to swim with..





Looks like swimming may be a bit intense in these waters...look at those waves!







wow.

does this look like me? (yeah right)


For some cool video coverage of surfing the Outer Banks, click on this link:

http://www.utopia-worldwide.com/five-flick-friday-outer-banks-north-carolina-by-transworld-surf/

I think I'd be satisfied just to catch a small wave, like this:




And if the weather's on the cool side, or we just want to be a landlubber for awhile,
our condo is conveniently located right next to the huge sand dunes of Jockey's Ridge:








more info here:
http://www.ncparks.gov/Visit/parks/jori/photos.php (Jockey's Ridge)

And finally, on one of our last nights there, we have the opportunity of attending an awesome worship concert at Roanoke Island Park, where people will gather to worship with the band
Jesus Culture!!!

http://hisgen.org/event/jesus-culture-recording-artist-kristen-dimarco-derek-johnson/



But then again, our youngest would probably get bored, and there's NO WAY we're even going to THINK about finding a babysitter so that we can go on anything that resembles a GAG-PUKE-"date"-REGRURGITATE-BLOW CHUNKS-RALPH-HURL-SPIT...(did i miss any?)
Don't EVEN!!!!!!! because I CANNOT EVEN!!!!!!!!!!!

ahem.

nah.  i can worship in the sea.

hang ten dude.




stay tuned for real-life coverage starting Sunday May 24th!!!



Whatcha lookin so crabby for?   this is going to be FUN, right???

Monday selfies

Good morning!  

Something about spring weather, just makes me want to take car selfies...fresh air, loud music, open windows...makes me smile.

(or make a stupid duck face)

                                                    

                                                        Have a great day, world!!!

Sunny first Sunday in May

T

Gorgeous day. who's ready to play?

                                           Love these coconut cream popsicles!!
                                                     

                                                  that's my boy!!

                                           Releasing my inner 80's rock star...lol...

                                                                      #selfish

saturday-sunday at grandmas

not a whole lot of news to report for the weekend, just some random photos.

 like this one of me as a teenager, up in Canada, where I met this beautiful wolf-dog at the campsite we were staying at.  I remember that trip well. It was a fishing trip, and I remember how amazing it was to drive through all those endless miles of northern wilderness without seeing any trace of humans, barely even any road signs, for miles and miles. 

next random photo... how fun it is to wake up next to this silly goose..

She gets really freaked out by the bugs in this house, so she ended up waking me up twice when a moth was buzzing around a lamp so i told her to just get in and sleep with me.  

next...Samantha is assigned the yearly task of decorating the Easter egg tree.  

(and then along comes Uncle Brad, the photobomber!)

                               next...Sam and Grandma playing Chinese checkers after lunch.
             

                               
                            And below...the two "egg trees".  These are real bird eggs, meticulously blown, painted and decorated by one of my now-deceased great-aunts, which my mom brings out every Easter and hangs on a little fake tree (first one below) or on a lilac branch that my brother sneakily got by tresspassing on a neighbor's yard and snipping it off their lilac bush, the dirty thief!!!

and then there's the bugs.  i don't like them either, but what can you do.

Here's an example of one of the big fat army ants that come out of the freshly chopped firewood that gets thrown into our basement, then the ants go crawling wherever they please.  ick.

                                 This next one is a rather unique insect that had my mom so curious she dug out her antique insect identification book and began paging through it, trying to figure out what he is, exactly.  Sam just went into another fit of the heebie-jeebies.
       
   There were other bugs i did not photograph, such as the many ladybugs we've found, one of which is scaring my daughter out of the kitchen this very minute, and another which so kindly awakened me one morning by crawling across my closed eyelid.  hmmm, what's that?  ew!!
oh and don't forget the big fat beetle in the basement shower, the multitude of some kind of droppings by the basement toilet... (rats? mice?), the totally gross centipede that went scurrying underneath the laundry sink when it saw me, various spiders on the ceiling, and sleepy lazy daddy long-leg spiders that my brother awakened with his broom when he went around cleaning up all their cobwebs.  ugh.

The bugs aren't the only thing that make me look forward to going home in a couple days and returning to my more sane, cleaner environment in NC.  Coming home to this house is fun at first, I can laugh at the idiosynchrasies, (sp?) but then...after a couple days...the memories from the walls start seeping back into me....the feelings i had in my growing up years that made me want to leave these 4 walls as fast as i could.  Not an abusive or hateful situation by any means, just...quietly dysfunctional.  I don't want to get into any more than that, it's more of a feeling than anything i can put into words anyway.  I"ll save it for my shrink in Raleigh.  

 

that's all for now.  just a little blue tonight...

goodnight.