Our flight left Nashville at 6:00 in the morning. When we fly as a family we try to get there about 2 hours before the flight leaves. With 3 young children flying we try to keep the stress down by not having to rush. My alarm went off at 3:00.
I actually had been sleeping off and on the whole time. Always worried I would sleep too late. The kids were put to bed in the clothes they were going to wear that day. At 3:15 I started getting the kids and putting them in the car. The all ended up waking up. They were very excited! Only a few hours until we will be at the beach.
When we got to the airport and headed over to the bus stop to ride to the bus to the terminal. It is funny to me that the kids just love all forms of transportation. We were heading into the terminal to check in our luggage and low and behold we left all the car seats in the van. We had some time to spare, but I needed to get back to the van. I went down to where we would get on the bus and it was empty (of course no flights were arriving). I went back up to where we were dropped off and waited on a bus from our lot to show up. I feft like I waited forever for a bus. Finally, a bus from our lot showed up and I told the driver what we had done. Actually, this bus wasn't going to our lot, but he called that bus driver. They were very very helpful and I was able to get back and get the 3 seats. We still had some time so we got all our luggage checked in and headed to the security check.
The flight was not cancelled or delayed. Things went smoothly. All three wanted to sit by the window on the plane. All three couldn't sit there so one had to sit in the aisle while 2 sat by the window.
Kayla and Michael sat by the window on the way to Baltimore which was our layover. Josh sat on the aisle. I sat between Josh and Michael.
We arrived in Baltimore for our hour layover. The Baltimore Airport has changed a lot since I was traveling out of Atlanta. We landed in the B Terminal and headed over the C terminal.
We got there quite a bit early and had about 30 minutes to wait. I took the kids on a walk. We walked to the A terminal with a huge window. We found a table and watched the planes. The kids had a hard time sitting still, but being 7, 4 and 2 also has something with them not sitting still.
When the time came we headed down to the gate. Time to take off to Norfolk.
The flight to Norfolk was uneventful. Flying into Norfolk was actually pretty cool. Part of the Navy Fleet is based in Norfolk and we flew over the base and saw submarines and other navy boats. What a sight! The Cheaspeake bridge was interesting too. You could see this bridge that seemed to go on and on and on. We were planning to take the bridge to a place to eat on the bridge and turn around and come back but we were limited by time and decided not just go to Virginia Beach instead.
We stopped by the rental car location and the lady was generous enough to offer a free upgrade to an SUV instead of a full size car we originally reserved. Now we have some room. We got the new version of our old jeep. Very nice.
Our first spot to go to was Virginia Beach. We stopped at McDonalds in the city of Virginia Beach. McDonalds is a huge treat for our kids since we barely ever go.
This McDonalds was not very clean. No playground or anything like that. So we ate and left. We drove down to the main part of Virginia Beach. We were looking for a spot to go out to the Beach and spend 30 minutes or so before heading down to North Carolina. We didn't see a spot right off the bat so we decided since we would only be there for 30 - 45 minutes we would stop at one of the hotels and walk to the Beach.
We parked at the Courtyard Marriott and had a pretty good spot that was near the beach.
We got a few things out and headed down the beach. We anticiapated that the water would be too cold to get into so we did not put on our bathing suits.
I went back and got the camera. When I was coming back I guessed what each one would be doing. I guessed that Josh would be at the edge of the water just dieing to go in, Michael would be starting to build some sort of castle or playing in the sand and Kayla would be hanging on mommy in some way. I was 100% right.
The temperature was warm enough that it was just the water that was cold. The boys asked if they could take off their shirts and just swim in shorts. Sure, no problem. So they went with that. I turned around and here comes Kayla just in her underwear. She was just copying the boys. So funny, but being a girl she probably needed to keep her dress on.
They had a great time. After 45 minutes it was time to head down to Knotts Island.
We had just left and on the left basically on the beach was a Diary Queen. How fun is that? So we turned around and went to the Dairy Queen. Great time eating ice cream on the beach.
Virginia Beach looked like a Gatlinburg on the beach instead of in the mountain.
The big difference between the Virginia Beach and Destin is most of the beach front property at Virginia Beach was hotels and in Destin it was condos.
We drove down to Knotts Island where we planned to catch the 4:00 ferry over to the main land of North Carolina which is about 30 minutes from Elizabeth City. We wanted to get there a bit early in case there were others wanting to ride the ferry. The ferry would only allow the first 10 vehicles and buses get first dibbs.
The ferry pulled up and we drove onto the ferry. We were the first car on the boat.
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| ON THE WAY TO THE OTHER SIDE IN THE RENTAL CAR (WHAT A NICE JEEP!) |
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| EVEN SCHOOL BUSES WERE ON THE FERRY. WHAT A WAY TO TRAVEL TO SCHOOL. |
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| IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STAIGHT. BYE BYE KNOTTS ISLAND |
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| SUNNY DAY |
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| WHAT A LONG DAY (3 IN THE MORNING TILL 8 IN THE EVENING) |
Later that evening we made it to Jermey's House in time for dinner and hitting the sack for the end of Thursday.
Since we had such a long day we had decided to hang out Friday at Jermey's house and Elizabeth City. We got to city what Elizabeth City had to offer. In the morning we headed to the blimb factory.
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| THEY ARE BUILDING A BLIMB BEHIND US - WE GOT AS CLOSE AS THEY WOULD LET US |
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| THE BLIMB THAT WAS FLYING |
After looking at the blimb factory we headed to the Coast Guard Station to take some pictures of the copyer and other Coast Guard things
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| COAST GUARD BASE HAD SOME COOL THINGS |
After the pictures we headed over to Jermey's for lunch and hang out time.
We went by the Elizabeth Museum to hang out for a little while. They had a kids room and some cool Coast Guard stuff to play with. It was a lot of fun, but it was time for lunch.
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| LOTS OF FUN PLAYING IN THE ELIZABETH CITY MUSEUM |
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| READY TO JOIN THE COAST GUARD |
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| KAYLA HAS BEEN RESCUED FLOATING IN THE OCEAN |
After lunch and resting we headed out to a playground near Jermey's house. It was a bit hot. The kids loved just running around. We had a jumping out of swing contest.
It worked out good. The rest of the day we went outside and played, throwing football, running around the house, etc . Jermey grilled out for dinner.
While running on the deck before dinner Josh came up to Heather and said his foot was bleeding. We didn't think much about it until we saw it. Josh had got a large splitter in his foot that was broken off in pieces. After working at trying to get it out we decided we probably couldn't get it out ourselves. It was way too deep. So we decided to take Josh to the emergency room to get it out. Normally we wouldn't take him to the emergency room for something like this, but since we wouldn't be back in Murfreesboro till next Wednesday and we were going to the ocean the whole weekend. We really didn't want to get it infected.
We located the hospital and they were very helpful.
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| JOSH'S FAVORITE EMERGENCY ROOM |
Kara had called ahead for us and they were waiting on us.
We went straight in. It was so deep they had to deaden that part of his foot and cut down and pull it out. After finishing they gave him 1 stitch to bring the cut together. Josh was most definately a trooper.
After hanging out at the house all day we got enough rest for an exciting weekend at the beach.
Saturday had finally arrived and it was time for the beach. Jermey and his crew and all my guys were going to beach this morning. Of course, we had forgotten some sandles for me and we needed to get some water shoes for Josh along with some socks to wear to protect his foot. So I went over to Walmart before we ventured off.
After my errands we finally hit the road. It was about an hour's drive to Nags Head were we stopped for the day at the beach. We found a spot to park the cars and got all our gear together to head to the beach.When we got to the beach we played in the water first thing. The water was pretty cold, but not for Michael and Kayla. Josh couldn't get into the water due to his foot. It was hard for Josh to stay out of the water for sure.
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| PLAYING IN THE SAND |
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| WISHING TO GO INTO THE WATER, BUT THE STITCH CAN'T GET DIRTY |
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| THE BEACH IS FUN! |
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| GREAT SAND TO PLAY IN |
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| JOSH LOVES THE BEACH |
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| Kayla Cheesing |
We all worked together and built a "Josh protector" in the sand. It was an area that was high enough that Josh could stay very near the water so Josh could enjoy the water and the waves.
The Josh protector worked. Josh able to "be in the ocean" without getting wet. It was kind of like an island when the water came up.
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| DON'T LEAVE THE PROTECTOR JOSH SO YOUR FOOT WON'T GET DIRTY |
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| WORKING ON THE HOLE |
At one point we decided to dig a hole. I dug and dug with Michael, Josh and Kayla helping. Eventually it got pretty deep. At one point I felt it was deep enough that I decided to fill it in so no one would fall into it.
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| EVERY TRIP TO THE BEACH HAS TO HAVE A DEEP HOLE |
Also, we made mermaid tails for the kids in the sand. Their body was buried and I made a body builder to fit with the head or I made a mermaid to fit with the head, very cute.
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| WHAT A PRETTY MERMAID |
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| BODY BUILDER JOSH |
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| WHAT HUGE MUSCLES! |
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| Time to Build a Castle! |
Jermey stayed through lunch and decided to head on back to Elizabeth City. We stayed at the beach until 4:00 or so. We needed to get back for dinner. Jermey and Kara were making dinner for us.
After dinner it was time to hit the sack. What a great day at the beach.
We decided that we hadn't seen the Cape Hater. lighthouse and we probably won't go to the Outbanks again (Since the beach is closer at Hilton Head or the gulf we probably won't drive all the way to the Outbanks - it is a 13 hour drive). So we planned on driving the lighthouse in the morning and spend the afternoon at the beach.
We drove to Nags Head and stopped at the visitor center for a break and to look around. The kids were able to walk around and see some things. There was a huge fish (probably 8 feet long).
We kept heading south. We hit some smoke. I assumed someone was burning leaves or something like that (That night we were watching the news and found out that there was a wild fire that had been burning for more than 3 weeks near the spot.
We made it to the state park and all the houses on the beach ended. It was the true beach with no development. We kept on heading south. After we had drove for some amount of time we were trying to decide is this drive worth it. We still had about 30 minutes left till we got to the lighthouse and then we had to drive back. We decided to make it through the go carts (brochure that we saw at the vistor center). We made it to the go carts and low and behold it was closed down. Time to turn around and head back. I had seen a beach right at the beginning of the state park that looked very nice (bath house, etc.). So we headed back to the beach. We decided to stop and get some lunch before getting to the beach. We stopped at KFC (all beach picnics got to have fried chicken), popcorn chicken for the kids and a chicken sandwhich for Heather and I.
We stopped at the state park. They had some changing spots and a nice bath house! The board walk was nice. I believe we hit the jack pot on beaches.
The kids and I played in the water, the sand and just had a lot of fun.
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| THE WATER WAS GREAT. A BIT CHILLY, BUT IS IT EVER TOO COLD TO GET IN? |
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| I LOVE THE BEACH AND THE WATER |
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| LOOK MOMMY, I AM SWIMMING IN THE OCEAN |
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| HANGING OUT IN THE WATER |
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| LET'S GO TO THE OCEAN TOGETHER. I'LL PROTECT YOU. |
During the day, we decided to build a castle. We worked off and on all day and built a huge sand castle. Some were coming down just to look at the sand castle and taking pictures of it. The boys loved people stopping by to the castle as well and taking pictures of them in front of the castle.
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| MILLER CASTLE IN PROCESS. |
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| CASTLE COMPLETED! NOTICE THE SEA SHELLS ON THE EDGE OF THE WALL. |
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| WHAT A GREAT FAMILY! WE ARE SO BLESSED! |
Jermey had dinner for us at 6:00 that evening. We had a 2 hour drive back to his house. We weren't sure what the time was, but felt it was probably past 4. So we sent Jermey a text and told him we probably wouldn't make it to dinner. We found a restraunt near where the park was. The restraunt is called the Dunes. The place was perfect for our family. Not too crowded so our kids could be themselves. We ordered then the hushpuppies came out while we waited. The hushpuppies were incredibly good. The first batch were gone very quickly. The hushpuppies were the highlight of the restraunt.
After eating we went back to the beach just to see how our castle was doing now that the tide had started to come back out. We had built some large walls so that the tide wouldn't destroy the castle. When we got there the castle was still standing and the tide just was starting to come up. The tide was starting to hit the first wall. I would have loved to stay and see if it held up to the tide, but we had to head back.
We drove back to Jermey's and hit the sack. We had a great time at the beach and built the largest castle I have ever built.
We got in late at Jermey's house and hit the sack as soon as we got there. Tomorrow is planned to be a slow day before heading back home.
We all slept in a bit this morning after such a great weekend at the beach. Today we stayed at Jermey's house and played with toys and played outside most of the time. After lunch Jermey, Michael and I went over to the frisbee golf course that was in a park near his house.
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| HOLE 4 AT ELIZABETH CITY FRISBEE GOLF COURSE. |
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| THE COURSE WAS NARROW |
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| DON'T GO OFF THE COURSE |
We had two frisbees. None of us had ever played frisbee golf. The course was bit challenging since the course was up and down hills. The fairway was narrow. We spent a lot of time in the woods. Michael and I were on the same team taking on Jermey. Jermey actually was pretty good. Jermey won most of the holes, but Michael and I did win one of the holes.
The rest of the day was hanging out and playing. Michael set up his own frisbee golf course at Jermey's house. Putting the frisbee through the swinging tire swing was very tough. Lots of fun!
Thanks Jermey for letting us hang out with you!
After such a great time at Jermey's it was time to head back home. Our flight was scheduled to leave around 4:30. We wanted to go to the Navy Museum on the way and go on board the USS Wisconsin. I actually was pretty excited about seeing the battleship.
We got up early and Jermey, Josh and I headed over to Lowes. Jermey wanted to rent a carpet cleaner to clean the carpet upstairs this morning. I didn't think we were that dirty to have to clean the carpets right after we left. That was the joke going around, but Jermey was in the process of trying to sale his house. He had planned on cleaning the carpet then anyways.
Jermey and his family was heading to Hilton Head around lunch. So we wanted to make sure that we hit the road so they could get things ready for their trip.
We packed up and headed out and drove up to Norfolk, VA. After parking in downtown Norfolk we headed over to the museum.
It was huge! We got there before the museum opened. We had just a few minutes to wait. We were fortunate that a cruise ship was in dock and about to leave that day. Some were already arriving to get on the crusie ship. The cruise ship was huge! I was most impressed with the large screen on the top deck. You could actually see the large screen from the ground.
Once the museum opened we headed in. I didn't know much about the museum. There was so much to do in the museum and our kids wanted to see most of the things in the museum, but we wanted to get out on the deck of the USS Wisconsin before it got to hot and crowded. Going on the ship was amazing! We were on the battleship that shot the first scud missle during the first Iraq War. I remember the images on TV of the scud taking off from the ship.
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| ONE OF THE SAFEST PLACES IN THE COUNTRY. THOSE WERE SOME BIG GUNS |
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| SCUD MISSLES |
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| HEADING DOWN INTO THE BATTLE SHIP |
We got to tour the whole ship except for the crew living quaters. We were able to see the living quarters of the top guys on the ship. Their quarters didn't look too bad. But imagination ran wild just imaging what actually had happened on this boat.
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| LOOK AT THE WATER SLIDE ON THAT CRUISE SHIP! |
After touring the boat we spent the rest of the morning in the museum. Our kids loved playing with the water flow system. The system had flowing water and you took certain walls and could dam up certain sides of the water creating your own flow of the water.
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| WHAT A BIG EEL IN THE MUSEUM |
They had a great time.
At lunch we decided to head over to a place near the water where we could see the water. We went to Joe's Crab Shack and had lunch. We had plenty of time to eat before heading to the airport.
We arrived at the airport and was dropping off the rental car (at Enterprise). They were so nice! They actually offered to drive us to the departures drop off at the airport instead of us having to walk to the terminal.
We checked in and boarded on the plane without a problem. When we were taxing out to take off we slowed down and the plane began to shake like heavy wind. Then a severe storm hit the airport. The winds were strong with a lot of rain and lightning. Of course, we sat on the tarmac and waited on the storm to pass before taking off. We were heading to Baltimore for the lay over and then heading back to Nashville.
Our layover was uneventful. Just hanging out at the airport. We didn't have too long of a wait due to the delay we had in Norfolk, VA.
We arrived in Nashville and headed home.
What a great trip! We had a great time and created some great memories! I always love taking Heather and the kids to the beach.
