Beach or Bust!

The Matthews Family left early yesterday morning to head to Corolla for 4 days! The kids were a little restless during the 2 hour drive - you would have thought we'd been in the car for a week the way they were acting. Eden had to tinkle before we even got out of Newport News and Gabe made me laugh hysterically when we were driving through Chesapeake - he looked out the window and said sarcastically 'Where are we? P-town?' I don't know how he even knows the nickname for Portsmouth but it cracked me up!

We arrived early in the afternoon and settled into our favorite Outer Banks beach house, very properly named, 'It's Five O'clock Somewhere'. We had a great time in the pool and hot tub and spent basically all day at the beach.

Gabe as 'Davie Jones' and Aunt Wendy as 'Captain Jack Sparrow' - Can I just say that I'm so happy that my son is obsessed with pirates! Arrrg - way to make mum happy matey! Maybe this means he'll go to East Carolina for his college education like mommy did.

Beautiful Outer Banks sky! 

A thunderstorm rolled through late last night and brought in a cold front. We tried the beach this morning but it was way too cold and way too windy. So we decided to take the kids to the Currituck Lighthouse for some fun!

Look at the difference between yesterday and today's sky!

We tried to get the kids to smile nicely for a picture and they completely lost their minds. Shortly after, I tried to sell all four of them to a group of strangers for $5. Surprisingly, there were no takers and Gabe later refused to hold my hand because he was mad that I 'twied to sewl' him.

We went on a nature walk out to the ocean and the tide was out - can you say smelly?! Eden was super bothered at the stench and Gabe was super bothered that we were on a 'bwidge to nowhere'. Then he said 'dis bwidge weeds to China and it smewls bad and all you eat for bweakfast, wunch and dinner is Chinese'.

Someones had enough and is ready to go!

Poor little Eden got a splinter in her thumb and middle finger from 'the bwidge to nowhere'. Here she is looking pitiful showing her boo-boo. She was also walking around with her middle finger up, but I showed some discretion and decided not to take a picture of that.

This is the Whalehead Club near the Currituck Lighthouse. It was built in the early 1920's and is absolutely gorgeous! The architecture is Art Nouveau and the view from the back porch is breathtaking!

Next stop...candy shop! Jonathan and I took the boys to The Sweet Spot (the only place to go to satisfy all of your candy & confectionery cravings). Yeah yeah, I know, shameless plug. Don't worry, I don't think any amount of advertising on my mommy blog will get me free salt water taffy for life so I'll stop there. Back to the fun stuff...we decided to stop by the Corolla Surf Shop and the boys ran around picking out all of the surf gear they wanted. We settled on the fact that the candy was enough of a special treat for the day and headed back to the beach house. WAIT! I should have probably told you that Eden went with Kelly Grace (Russ, Wendy & Mimi) to the grocery store instead of riding back with Mommy & Daddy. I think both girls were a little jealous that they didn't get to go on a candy store binge. (We'll take them tomorrow).