Christmas Trip to Currituck

 The big kids came home for THREE WEEKS over Christmas break. It was SO fun to have them home. Andrew had surgery between Christmas and New Years, so I knew we'd need to do our fun stuff before then. We decided to take a few days and head out toward the coast. We rented a fun AirBnb on the water in Currituck, NC.

ROAD TRIP!

We get to squish all together in my little car.

It works just fine. :)

We stopped for a yummy dinner in Williamston, NC

at a restaurant called Georgia Dean's.

Isn't that a great name for a Southern restaurant?

Here's the view from the sunroom of our AirBnB.

That water is a sound or bay or something,

not the actual ocean.

Still makes for a great view, though.

We visited some cute little shops in 

Elizabeth City, NC.

It was supposed to be a hot cocoa crawl,

but we couldn't find it.

We did find some yummy Mexican food, though.

That was quite the burrito!

We spent a couple hours at the Food Bank of the Albemarle,

packing boxes of food and breaking down cardboard boxes.

I loved it.

It was a big warehouse and we got to work on an

assembly line putting together boxes of food that will be 

delivered to those who need it.

The height of the line was rough for the boys.

Their backs were hurting.

But I was happy we could give some service.

Then we headed up to Virginia Beach.

Spent some quality time at Dave and Busters.

I've passed on my love of coin pushing to my girls. :)

Then we headed down toward the beach and had

the craziest evening. There's a business there called 

FFX--Family Fun Experience. I could tell from the 

ads that it looked cheesy. And I tried to warn my family

that it would be cheesy. But I also thought it looked fun.

And it was both!

It included light-saber dueling elves.

And the girls and I got to wear hard hats and

were played like bongo drums. Ha!

It also included lots of different games, like Name

That Christmas Carol. But then there was another part

of it that was like a group-mystery-solving activity.

It wasn't very fun. And you were supposed to talk with

strangers, which I'm fine with, but the boys were NOT up for.

Anyway, it was memorable and mostly fun.

They also offered discount tickets to drive through the light

show on the boardwalk.

I'm so happy we got to go!

It was a perfect drive-through show.

Loved it.

The next day was our stay-at-home and chill day.

I've learned that Andrew appreciates a day like that. :)

I've also learned that I can go do things on my own and

to just embrace and enjoy that. So I went birding on

my own in the morning.

We brought some board games that we played.

We hired a photographer to come take better 

family photos than my phone could take. ;)

We only left the house to go to dinner.

We ate at Eagle Creek Golf Club & Grill.

All of us enjoyed it except for Whit.

Look at her portion of mac and cheese!

Whoa!

And it had puddles of butter in it.

Not appealing.

So happy to have my puzzle buddy back!

The next day was time to check out and head home.

I planned a couple stops on the way.

First was this fantastic arcade!

Flippers is inside a gas station.

Which sounds crazy and didn't give me

high expectations. But they had a great variety

of both old and new games. 

And their prices were reasonable.

We rocked the Angry Birds coin pushers again.

After that, we headed to the beach!

Kitty Hawk was the nearest one.

It was FREEZING, y'all.

But we bundled up and braved the cold and the wind.

Just for a bit.

We couldn't handle the cold for long,

but I'm so happy we could stop by.

We had to snuggle to keep each other warm.

Look at all that sand blowing!

The beach is always windy,

but this was next-level wind!

But we still had to get some jumping pics!

And handstand pics.

And contortionist pics. :)

Guess what?

We had the beach to ourselves!

Ha!

I had planned to drive up to a lighthouse after that.

But that windy weather ruined our plans.

Look at the road!

Since the Outer Banks are just that narrow strip

of land, when it gets too windy, the roads

are underwater! It was nuts.

So we just headed home instead.

But even the drive home was sketchy!

The traffic was SLOW getting off the island.

Lots of water on the roads.

That red strip of highway was where we had to drive.

So crazy to see the water coming up.

Grateful we could make it out safely.

Our last stop was at Mood Swings, a cute little

family-owned restaurant in Creswell, NC.

The family that run it are SO nice.

But the food was just ok.

They had THE cheesiest Christmas movie EVER

playing while we ate. It was called The Key to Christmas.

And it was so bad that it might become a new tradition. Ha!

We got home in time for the coldest weather that I think we've ever had in NC in the twenty years since we've lived here. Some people in our area lost power because of a drain on the grid. Rough! But ours stayed on and we were comfy and warm in our beds as we finished last-minute prep for Christmas.