Day 23 - A Trip To The Cape
This morning I realized that one of my earplugs had fallen
out when I woke up at 6am to loud music. Curious as to where it was coming
from, I got dressed and went outside. From the empty parking lot of the Jolly
Roger there is a giant boombox-style speaker strapped to the telephone pole
blasting some unknown pop music at 6am. What the? Curse you Jolly Roger!
Since I was up I decided to watch the rest of the sunrise. The sun was barely above the horizon on the ocean and it was glowing orange and red. I walked down the wooden path to the ocean and sat on the beach for a half hour or so watching the sunrise and just enjoying the time to meditate. It was beautiful. And so peaceful. There was a solitary fisherman out on the water quietly paddling around in his kayak. Down the beach a ways there were a handful of fisherman by the pier and joggers ran by here and there. Besides the possible homeless man sleeping 40 yards away from me it was serene.
We spent the morning at the beach. I love the beach. My kids don’t fight. There are no digital devices. It’s just pure, old-fashioned, wholesome fun! After a few hours we came in for lunch and headed down the coast of the Outer Banks to Cape Hatteras.
5:37pmWe just got back from Cape Hatteras. It was a long drive
but totally worth it. At least to me. When I was in High School or maybe my
first year of BYU, my brother Nolan was serving his mission in North Carolina.
He sent us a postcard with the Cape Hatteras Light House and it looked so
perfect that I’ve always wanted to go there. When he got home from his mission
and we had our first Christmas, he made me a homemade frame out of driftwood
with a picture of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse framed inside. I’ve had it in my
house since Jeff and I were first married. It’s also the tallest lighthouse
in North America and so iconic looking that the allure deepened. When I booked
this trip, Cape Hatteras was definitely on my “to do” list.
Lighthouses are not top on the kids list necessarily but
they still think they are pretty cool. Especially one so tall! We walked around
the ground and the lightkeeper’s house before climbing the 257 steps to the top
of the lighthouse. The view was beautiful. I loved learning about how they had
to move the lighthouse a half mile inland in 1999 because the ocean had eroded
away the coastline by 1430 feet since the lighthouse was built.
After a quick stop at Sonic for some slushies and corn dogs
(sick) we headed home. We weren’t home more than 5 minutes when Isaac was on me
to take him to the beach. I caved after a few minutes and we headed down to the
beach. The rest of the family joined us 10 minutes later and we spent the
entire evening at the beach until after sunset.
Today is Jeff and I’s 15th anniversary and we wanted to go out on a date but how could we pull those kids away from the beach. If they were fighting or hanging out watching TV, we would have been gone in a minute but we played in the surf and then sat on the beach watching our kids play happily together and reminiscing about the past 15 years. Honestly, that’s as perfect of a date as anything. We still went out to a late dinner around 9pm anyway so we got the best of both worlds!
We got a frantic call around 10:15 from Kira. Mikey was having a coughing fit and coughing up stuff and inconsolable. Luckily we were 2 minutes from home. The kids were all so worried about Mikey when we got home. He was half asleep and really freaking out and coughing really hard. I don’t think he could breathe very well. I held him and scratched his back and rocked him. He still wouldn’t really calm down or wake up. Jeff was able to give him a blessing and after a few minutes he was able to calm down and stop coughing. He moaned off and on while he fell asleep in my arms on the recliner in the living room. I just love that kid. I haven’t had someone fall asleep in my arms for a long time and it was so sweet even though I felt so bad that he was miserable. He was able to sleep well through the night and is doing better this morning but I think we’ll try to the kids to the doctor today if we can figure out the insurance thing.
Since I was up I decided to watch the rest of the sunrise. The sun was barely above the horizon on the ocean and it was glowing orange and red. I walked down the wooden path to the ocean and sat on the beach for a half hour or so watching the sunrise and just enjoying the time to meditate. It was beautiful. And so peaceful. There was a solitary fisherman out on the water quietly paddling around in his kayak. Down the beach a ways there were a handful of fisherman by the pier and joggers ran by here and there. Besides the possible homeless man sleeping 40 yards away from me it was serene.
We spent the morning at the beach. I love the beach. My kids don’t fight. There are no digital devices. It’s just pure, old-fashioned, wholesome fun! After a few hours we came in for lunch and headed down the coast of the Outer Banks to Cape Hatteras.
Today is Jeff and I’s 15th anniversary and we wanted to go out on a date but how could we pull those kids away from the beach. If they were fighting or hanging out watching TV, we would have been gone in a minute but we played in the surf and then sat on the beach watching our kids play happily together and reminiscing about the past 15 years. Honestly, that’s as perfect of a date as anything. We still went out to a late dinner around 9pm anyway so we got the best of both worlds!
We got a frantic call around 10:15 from Kira. Mikey was having a coughing fit and coughing up stuff and inconsolable. Luckily we were 2 minutes from home. The kids were all so worried about Mikey when we got home. He was half asleep and really freaking out and coughing really hard. I don’t think he could breathe very well. I held him and scratched his back and rocked him. He still wouldn’t really calm down or wake up. Jeff was able to give him a blessing and after a few minutes he was able to calm down and stop coughing. He moaned off and on while he fell asleep in my arms on the recliner in the living room. I just love that kid. I haven’t had someone fall asleep in my arms for a long time and it was so sweet even though I felt so bad that he was miserable. He was able to sleep well through the night and is doing better this morning but I think we’ll try to the kids to the doctor today if we can figure out the insurance thing.
Sunrise on the beach.
I read that the sport fishermen come back to the marina between 4-5pm from their charters and they display their catch of the day. We happened to be driving past Oregon Inlet Fishing Center at 4:30pm so we stopped by and sure enough, there were 4 boats that had just come in and laid out all their fish. It was pretty awesome to see the huge fish they'd caught.
Bodie Island Lighthouse.
Comments
Post a Comment