We survived!

Every year we take two long weekends (one in the spring and one in the fall) and head to Oak Island, NC with my parents.  However, due to the baby and scheduling issues, it had been a year and a half since our last visit.  So, even though there was a tropical storm on the way, we headed out as originally planned to get in a little beach time and some R&R.

We arrived Saturday just in time for lunch at our favorite sub shop.  Then we unloaded the car and hopped into our bathing suits.  It was very windy and overcast, but it wasn't raining so we knew we needed to make the most of our afternoon.

And I forgot to take my real camera so here for your viewing pleasure are a few grainy snaps from ye olde phone:

After swimming and playing in the really, really, really rough waves, we came in to get ready for Saturday evening Mass.

After Mass, we headed to dinner and around 6:15 it started to rain.  And the wind kicked up.  And the storm stormed away for over 26 hours.  Things were blowing off the beach house (gutters, a storm door, a light fixture) and the house was literally rocking.  As I lay in bed, I could feel the bed swaying back and forth.  We were never in any real danger but we all had a hard time sleeping.  It was just so loud and windy.

We headed to a really nice restaurant for Mother's Day dinner in the rain on Sunday evening, although it was finally starting to slack off at this point. 

On Monday, we got up and hit the beach after breakfast.  There was going to be a break in the rain for a few hours and we wanted to make sure we could play.  There was also a tiniest bit of sunshine too!

Peter got a metal detector for Christmas but said he felt like he looked like a dork with it.  So Daddy got to use it.

And Peter got to dig....

Um dork?  No way.  Totally cool dude.  Totally.

And, after a nice morning on the beach playing in the water and digging for but not finding any buried treasure, we headed back into to clean up and pack up and then we headed home.

It wasn't exactly the long weekend of our dreams, but we managed to eat lots of good food, play in the water and on the beach and we survived Tropical Storm Ana.  Not perfect, but not too shabby either!