FRIDAY JULY 30TH
Kevin had to work from 7:00 to 3:30 so I spent the day packing up the car, finishing up laundry and cleaning the apartment. I also kept both the girls awake by taking them outside to play a lot. We also played frisbee with Kito and spent some time with him. At 3:30 I drove the van over to my parents house. My mom put some of their stuff in the van because they ran out of room. Kevin met us there at 3:45 and we left the car at their house. We pulled out of my parents driveway right around 4:00 p.m. We stopped at a Burger King in Lewistown, PA at 6:30 for dinner.Then we continued on. We did not have any traffice problems until we were on 95 and had to slow down to 30-45 miles an hour for a couple of hours. We arrived at our hotel (Super 8) in Ashland, VA at 11:00 p.m. The girls and I took a bath and we went to bed around midnight.
SATURDAY JULY 31ST
Kevin woke up really early and took a shower. I woke around 6:00 and the girls were up by 6:30. We ate breakfast and then let the girls play on the playground at the Hotel. My sister Stacey and her two kids were also staying there. They had left early Friday morning but ran into a lot of traffic and it took them a long time to get there. We all left the hotel at 9:00. Kevin, the girls and I stopped at the Diggers Dungeon Monster truck place at 12:30. We got some pictures and the girls liked seeing the goats. One of them was making noises and Gabby said it was talking to us. Kevin bought the girls each a monster truck toy and a t-shirt for the baby. When we left traffic was really slow. We got to Kitty Hawk at 2:00 and stopped at Quiznos for lunch. We arrived at the Village realty office at 3:45. They would not give me the check in info until 4:00 though because they said the house was not ready. Then at 4:00 they said it still was not ready and that housekeeping would be there but that they would work around us. So we arrived at the house at 4:30 because traffic was still slow. When we got there I walked inside and a cleaning woman came up to me and asked if I was staying there. I said "Yes I am" and she said "Well the house is not ready yet." so I said "Well can we just start to bring some of our stuff in?" and she said "No, not yet." so I went back out and told Kevin what she said and he called the office and they called the house keepers and told them that check in is 4:00 and they need to let us in. So they came out and told us we could go take our stuff in. They didn't finish cleaning until about 5:30. That is when Stacey arrived. My parents, Angela & Tony and Shelly & Josh and their kids all arrived around 6:00. Around 6:30 Kevin and I took our kids and Zack & Natalee down to the beach. Stacey and her kids came down too. The girls were having a lot of fun running up to the water and then back away from the waves. The boys did not want to go in at first because there were a few Jelly fish on the beach and they were afraid of them. When we got back to the house Stacey made the kids some ravioli for dinner and we ordered subs. Everyone else had already eaten. We went to bed around 10:00
SUNDAY AUGUST 1ST
It was raining in the morning. Kevin and I took the girls and went to get some groceries, then we looked around in some of the shops. Kevin bought a kite in one of them. We went down to the beach around 12:00. The waves were really high and the wind was blowing. I was too cold to even go in but everyone else did. It was a good day for Boogie boarding on the waves. Around 2:00 we went back to the house and everyone went swimming in the pool or lounging in the hot tub. When we were done with that my mom, shelly, Stacey, Paighten and I walked a couple of miles to a food lion grocery store. We got a few things and then Josh picked us up because it had started to pour rain. When we got back we made Taco Salads for dinner. My dad, Angela and her boyfriend Tony went fishing. They only caught a few small fish and threw them all back. When it got dark we went back to the beach and the kids had fun catching some crabs. Kevin and I found 4 very tiny one's. The girls and I went to bed around 10:00.
MONDAY AUGUST 2ND
My mom, Shelly, Kevin and Gabby got up early and walked to the beach to watch the sun rise. After breakfast we all went to the Currituck Lighthouse. http://www.currituckbeachlight.com/index.php Everyone except my parents walked a lot of steps to the top. (They had done it another year) It was so hot and humid but the view from the top was worth it. There was a park there also and we walked around there for a while. We saw a green snake in a tree and some neat looking spiders. After that everyone else left to go back for lunch. Kevin and I stayed with the girls and we went to a little museum they had there. There were some stuffed animals in there such as a bear, swan and deer. Gabby kept asking me "Mommy why are they not alive?" There was also a small aquarium there that the girls enjoyed. We went back outside and saw some people crabbing. They had a bucket full and looked like they were catching quite a few of them. The girls fell asleep on the way back to the house. Kevin and I stopped at a pizza and deli place and got subs to go. After their nap we got them some lunch and then went to the beach. I was sitting on the sand and letting the waves splash around me. It was really nice until I felt a sting on my thigh. Then I felt another one and I stood up and a big jellyfish was under my leg! It stung so bad for about 10 minutes. Kevin probably thought I was a big baby because I made such a fuss about it, LOL. That hurt though! Glad it happened to me instead of one of the girls! When we got back to the house we went to the pool.
TUESDAY AUGUST 2ND
I got up at 5:20. I went upstairs and started a pot of coffee, then walked down to the beach by myself. It was still dark out. I had a flashlight and could see with that. At one point there was a bat that flew over my head! Freaked me out! I took the tripod and camera down and got some nice pictures of the sun coming up. It was so pretty and amazing how fast it comes up! My parents got down to the beach right about the time it was coming up. We went back to the house and ate breakfast. Then I laid down for about an hour before we went down to the beach at 10:00. We all built a big sandcastle together. The adults did most of the work! We built some trenches around it to keep the water out. It was fun acting like a kid again, lol. After that we went back to the house and the girls and I took a nap while Kevin went and did a little shopping. When we woke up he came and got us and we did a little more looking around the shops. We went swimming in the pool when we got back. We all had Spaghetti, garlic bread and salad for dinner that night. We had the 4 little girls eat outside at the picnic table. We washed them off in the outside shower afterward and they they went back into the pool to swim. Later that night Shelly, Josh and I watched some shows on shark attacks. Not the best shows to watch when you are vacationing on a beach, lol. We went to bed around 10:00.
WEDESDAY AUGUST 3RD
Everyone got up early to go to the beach for a family photo and to watch the sun come up. It was so cloudy that we didn't get to see it but we did get a few nice group photos. We went back to the house to eat breakfast. Then Kevin, the girls and I went to the Wright Brothers Memorial http://www.nps.gov/wrbr/index.htm to see where the first flights took place. It was neat to see the workshops they used and read the history. It was really hot there though! Later we went to the beach and swam in the pool. Then we all went out for dinner to a place called Fat crabs. The food was pretty good but pretty pricey for what we got. Shelly and I got the Zesty Garden burger. They were really good veggie burgers. http://www.fatcrabsobx.com/
THURSDAY AUGUST 4TH
We spent the morning at the beach and then did a little more shopping. I wanted to get an antique photo of our family done but it would have been $45.00 and I didn't want to spend that much on one photo. Later that night we grilled out for dinner and did some swimming. I washed up our laundry and started packing up some of our stuff to leave in the morning.
FRIDAY AUGUST 5TH
It was a day of packing up and driving. We got up and had breakfast. Then Kevin and I finished packing everything up into the car. We left for Hanover, MD around 10:00 but ran into some heavy traffic. We ended up getting onto 17 North and took that all the way to MD because even though we drove through some towns the traffic was flowing a lot better. We got to the Holiday Inn Express in Hanover around 6:30. The girls needed to burn off some energy so we let them swim in the pool for a while. Then we took them to our room and gave them a bath. After that we went to Denny's for dinner. It is attached to the Holiday inn. Then Kevin went to the mall for a little while and the girls and I went back to our room. They watched cartoons for a while until they found some pens and paper and then they started writing on those while I uploaded some pictures to facebook from our trip. Around 9:15 I got them to sleep. Kevin got back at abut 9:45. He was happy because he had gone to the Lego store. We all slept in a King size bed. Well, at least the girls seemed to sleep good...
SATURDAY AUGUST 6TH
Shelly and Josh were staying nearby with Josh's brother and sister in law. We met them at Golden Corral for breakfast and then went to the Arundel Mall. I bought a few outfits for the baby for next summer. Kevin and the girls got some legos at the Lego store. We left there around 1:00 and headed home. We stopped around 3:45 at a Wegman's in Wilkes-barre, PA. We noticed that there was some smoke coming from the van and we could smell something burning. We went inside to eat and then Kevin went back out to check on the van. He could tell it was transmission fluid leaking so he checked it and it was low. We had to drive to 3 stores before we found one that sold transmission fluid. It was a quart low so Kevin put some in and we continued driving. We stopped again about 30 miles outside of Binghamton, NY. It was still leaking so Kevin put in another half quart and we continued on. When we passed Binghamton we saw some Hot air balloons. They were really pretty. We finally made it home around 7:00 p.m. We do not know what is wrong with the Van yet but just happy to have made it home safely!
We had a wonderful trip. It was so nice to have all the family together like that! We are planning on all doing some sort of vacation together again in 2 years.
