We made it! Whew!

Ok, first of all...MAJOR KUDOS TO NATALIE!!!!! She has been such a trooper so far. I am incredibly proud of her! We left NY at 4:30am and didn't arrive in Kill Devil Hills until 7:20pm. Talk about a long day in the car! YIKES! We hit a snag in the morning (which we won't talk about at Jeff's request) and lost about an hour and a half of travel time. We also hit traffic in Norfolk and that set us back a bit. For the record - I hate tunnels and bridges. Anyways - Natalie was a perfect angel!!!



We made it to the hotel and met up with my parents and sister and her boyfriend. Natalie played for awhile and then we put her to bed. Natalie didn't sleep that great in the hotel - I think she knew it wasn't that great. We got up Saturday morning - had breakfast. Natalie was a total ham - entertaining everyone! Every time she sees someone she waves at them! Then she thankfully took a little nap.

Here are some pictures of Natalie's first time seeing the ocean!! She was completely mesmerized.






Here are Natalie and Daddy taking a snooze before we headed off to our next adventure!!



We checked out of the hotel around 11am and then we went to Jockey Ridge to see the sand dunes. Those were SO COOL! Natalie didn't really join us for that part - it was too windy and I didn't want her to get sand in her face so my Mom and Dad and grandparents hung out with her. Here are a few pictures...










After that we drove to Rodanthe for some lunch and then went grocery shopping. We were a tiny bit frustrated with the Real Estate Company because they didn't call us to get into the house until 4pm. Their policies are a little screwy in my opinion - we were actually trying to rent the house a day early - on Friday, but they said we couldn't (long story) and then they didn't even make an effort to make sure we could get in by 3pm (check in) or earlier on Saturday! They said they had to inspect the house, etc - um, we're the first people to rent the house this season. Whatever, we got in around 4pm! Whooooo!

I was incredibly overwhelmed by the magnitude of this house. I still haven't figured it all out. It is MASSIVE! There are 9 bedrooms - a bazillion bathrooms. An incredible great room, loft, wrap around decks on every floor, gorgeous kitchen, media room, 2 rec rooms with a pool table and ping pong table, wet bar, flat screen TVs all over the place. It is just amazing. Our bathroom is seriously my dream bathroom. I haven't really taken any pictures yet, but I will later. I don't think they'll even come close to doing the house justice.

Yesterday was great weather, but a little on the windy side. Today is not so nice - it looks like the sun is trying to peek through. Its chilly though - high 50s I think. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't 76 yesterday!! Hopefully the temps will come back up, but it isn't looking so good. Natalie has just been amazing this whole time - I'm so proud of her. She's exhausted, but in a great mood. She slept great last night (even though my family is LOUD!!) and she already took a great nap this morning.

I think today we're just going to hang out - which is fine by me! I'm still exhausted. I haven't been sleeping well - I'm hoping Jeff can go get my some Unisom later today that I can take tonight. Hopefully at some point Jeff and I can take a walk on the beach too. So far it has been a great start to our vacation!!!!