Family Vacation Part One - The Outer Banks

Frank and I always have the grandest notions of taking vacations every year, but for some reason or another (pregnancy,  obligations...etc) we generally end up shortening our vision of a nice week away to a day trip or two.  This year we broke the mold!  Hooray!  Frank was presented with the opportunity for our family, Zoe included, to join friends in the Outer Banks (three days from then).  YES! YES!!! YES!!!!!!! I exclaimed when he asked me if I would like to go!  Hell YES!!!!!!!  To make it even better, we decided to stay in Williamsburg, VA for a couple of nights on the way back, breaking up the 8 hour car trip home.  I do have to say, as worried as I was about traveling 8 hours in a car with a 17 month old, Jackson was AWESOME!

Here are my tips for traveling with a toddler....
1.  Drive in the middle of the night if at all possible (He slept almost the entire way there and cried less than 15 minutes during the ENTIRE drive to OBX).
2.  Bring lots of favorite snacks and favorite blanket/toy
3.  Make sure you are equipted with something to watch in the car.  I'm sure a portable DVD player would be great, or even easier if your car has one built right in (we're not that fancy), but I had none of that at my disposal so I downloaded three episodes of Sesame Street on my iphone, which I really am convinced was one of the smartest things I have ever done in my whole life.  This not only kept my generally TV deprived kid occupied in the car, but also in fancy restaurants and when he got up at 5:00 am and Mommy was not ready to.  Genius! (Hey...it is a vacation for Mommy too right?)

We spent our days thoroughly enjoying Corolla's beautiful beaches, our awesome house with plenty of steps for Jack to practice on....all day long....and night....,  having drinks in the hot tub, and just relaxing!  The only slight snag....Daddy broke a rib and ruptured his a chillies tendon.  How?  Oh well...if you know Frank then you obviously know that he never listens to me when it comes to being careful playing sports.  After all what would I know?  I have only been on several trips with him in which he has broken a bone, thrown out his back, tweaked his knee, shoulder or elbo, pulled a muscle....the list goes on and on playing football on the beach of course.  Live hard, play hard....get hurt really hard.  Poor Daddy.  Despite this injury he still managed to do plenty of over doing it on our trip....oh yeah and not visit a hospital, or wrap his ankle and leg like I suggested, which we later found out he should have been doing the entire time and has now resulted in surgery! of things to enjoy himself on our trip.

And, behold it was a fabulous time at OBX!  Thank you so much Patrick and Liz for inviting us and to Jeremy and family for welcoming us along on your family vacation!  It was just what we needed (minus, of course, all of Frank's injuries).

naked car ride after a quick water bottle rinse (in case you are wondering why we drove 100 yards -possibly less- to the beach re-read the third paragraph)

Best family shot that we took (pre-injury)

First ice cream cone that he ate by himself

The only other family picture that we took (post-injury...and we are all smiles)

Stay tuned for Family Vacation Part Two - Williamsburg!