Crystal Coast, NC

Lucky for us, this whole weekend started out with friends along. Here we are celebrating our first time setting foot in North Carolina!

Laeticia did the honors with the sticker. She is from France! (That's not even on our map!!)
This is on the way out to Emerald Isle, part of the Crystal Coast. That little white dot is actually an egret... the parts between the island and the mainland are mostly marshes and bird sanctuaries.
But we mainly just wanted to see the ocean!! Here are the boys, getting their first shot at boogie boarding!!

Oh yes, daddy is proud!!!

but hey, who taught him that??!!

(that's Lisa, she's from New Mexico. She was just as happy to see the surf as we were!!) Lisa, Chrissy and Laeticia hung out with the boys over the weekend. They were AWESOME and according to the boys "the best babysitters ever!"
Here we are Tuesday night, Shayna's turn. She could hardly walk, but that didn't stop her. We went and found a quiet spot right away, and enjoyed the most peaceful and RELIEVED time at the beach ever.

See that smile??!! (Amen)


These lovely scraggley trees are all over the island. This is the Atlantic side... all the outer banks islands are barrier islands, so they have waves on one side and then its nice and quiet on the other side. The islands are super skinny, you could probably pole vault from one side to the other. This island you can drive to, the northern islands are by boat only. Those are the official "Outer Banks" and we're gonna check those out, later.

Huge thanks to the crew, who totally salvaged this whole weekend. What would we have done without you?? HUGS