Every couple of years Ben and I get very spoiled when both of our families take vacations during the summer. At the beginning of July we had my family’s Florida vacation to Long Boat Key and at the end of August we had Ben’s family’s vacation to Outer Banks, NC. I love that we get to go on so many beach vacations because I love the sun, sand and water so much! Plus it’s pretty awesome that we have two families that we get along with so well that we can take week long vacations with them.

We all rented a gigantic house in Duck that was right on the sound side of the water.

Anna is the oldest cousin and she’s so great with all of the little one’s.

Just missing one of my nieces in the picture. (Also a lot of these pictures are from my phone so please excuse the quality!)

The day we got to the beach was Will’s birthday so we celebrated that night.

Hailey and Olivia are only a couple of months apart and it’s so cute to watch them together and see their little personalities come out.

I think Olivia looks a lot like Ben’s mom, Ingrid.

The house had a pool which was great if you didn’t want to walk the block to the beach.

Cute little water bugs!

Ben got me new string for my kite that reels in like a fishing pole so I flew my kite a lot that week.

I can’t help myself when it comes to collecting seashells 🙂 I helped the kiddos build a sand castle the first day on the beach.

We watched the eclipse on the beach thanks to my sister-in-law who bought the glasses.

Cutie!

Ben helped Will build one of his birthday presents. Apparently Anna and I can swap clothes now hahaha

Ben’s brother, Matt, took us up to Corolla Beach where it can only be accessed by a 4×4 vehicle. I sat next to my niece, Hailey, anytime she wanted my attention she would put her foot on me and then she fell asleep holding my finger. She’s such a sweetheart.

Hailey loves the sand.

Ben climbing the sand dunes on Corolla Beach.

Look at that smile!

I think we got the kite up almost every day.

The girls even wanted to fly the kite.

We went to Jockey’s Ridge State Park to see the East Coast’s tallest sand dune.

Ben and I were the only ones that actually walked onto the dunes because it was so hot. It was really pretty with all of these little ponds.

Ombre water in shallow water.

From the top of the dunes you can see both sides of the water, the sound and the ocean.

We went to visit the Wright Brother’s National Museum. These were the Wrights’ hangers.

The Wright Brothers did four test flights that were marked by the rocks.

The track on the left was what they used for the plane.

We took our kite to fly it at the place where flying began.

This girl is just too cute.

The memorial at the top of the hill was where the Wright Brothers first did their hang gliding experiments.

My cousin and his family are in Outer Banks so we also got to stop and see them.

Ben played with the kiddos in the pool.

I stayed by the side of the pool and held baby Hannah.

Matt made Duck Donut ice cream sandwiches. Yum!

Hailey is such a beach baby! She did not mind being sandy at all.

Uncle Ben likes to bury kids in the sand… if they dig the hole. hahaha

Laura had matching flamingo pool floats for her and Hailey.

The beach is so pretty right before sunset. So many pretty pastel colors.

When my family used to go on trips with my dad’s side of the family my grandma would bring all kinds of art supplies and paint. My grandpa and us kids would collect seashells, rocks, driftwood and feathers so we could make all kinds of creations. I thought it would be fun to do the same with my nieces and nephews.

It was fun to see how into it the kids got.

I even brought my watercolors to the beach so I could paint a little.

On our last day I had to build one more sandcastle 🙂

The 3 headed sand monster!

We celebrated Ezra’s birthday on our last night at the beach.