Man, is it Monday already? I can’t believe how quickly our annual family and friend beach vacation in the Outer Banks went by! Wishing I were back here right now:
Thank you for all your book recommendations, by the way! I ended up purchasing 3 to enjoy over the next couple months: Outlander (I started reading this on the beach and it’s SO GOOD in that awesome addictive way that some books can be), Paper Towns, and And Then There Were None. Excited to read them all! I put a few others on my “to buy” list – Where’d You Go Bernadette is next up since a ton of you recommended it.
The last few days of our beach trip were nice and relaxing – I feel like it took me a few days to really relax but by mid week I was feeling niiiiice and chill. We spent most of our days relaxing on the beach, playing in the waves, and playing assorted beach games – Kan Jam (old favorite) and Spyder Ball (new favorite).
On Friday morning, we mixed things up with an early morning deep sea fishing trip!
It was an EARLY morning – we woke up at 4:45, drove down to the marina, and pushed off by 6 a.m. Worth it for this lovely view!
Fishing!
It was a little rough out there, as you can see, but thanks to a little preemptive dramamine we were all fine. 😉
I’d never been deep sea fishing before – it was fun!
None of the other ladies were interested so it was me and the boys out on the water.
Got some!
Then we caught this one!
Juuuust kidding. 😉 Sadly the big ones weren’t biting on Friday!
One of the biggest highlights was actually on our trip back in to shore – some dolphins started playing in our boat’s wake! SO cool – wish I’d acted fast enough to get a photo!
As for food the rest of the trip, we enjoyed some fabulous dinners out, and even caught this epic sunset outside the window of a restaurant one night. Insane! Mental note: book a kayaking trip next year during sunset!
As for the rest of our meals at the house, one night we had a fried feast (yep, fried – everything in moderation, friends)! Matt’s parents brought a big fryer with them so we had fried fish, homemade bloomin’ onions, plus some veggies and cornbread, and a savory tomato pie (bought locally).
On Friday night we had a grilled “surf ‘n’ turf” theme – the surf portion of which was our fresh caught fish from the deep sea fishing excursion! It was really good – so flavorful! And of course tasted even better since we caught it ourselves. 🙂
The rest of the feast:
My plate:
Our final day, Saturday, was rainy, but Matt and I got in a nice run (about 3 miles, half of which was on the beach – fun and HARD with the sand!) with our friend Thomas.
The rest of the day was spent in and out of the pool and hot tub at our house. Some intense pool volleyball tournaments also happened. 🙂
I’ll leave you with this photo of Matt and our adorable nephew, Nate. He’s 9 months now and SUCH a sweet baby – very smiley and happy. <3
Have a great day, my friends! I’ll be spending it catching up on my email inbox and work. Back to the grind!
p.s. Thank you so much to everyone who entered the Brooks “Who Inspires You to Run Happy” giveaway to win a new running outfit for your run happy inspiration! I loved reading all the comments about who inspires you. Keep up that running happy, my friends, and keep inspiring those around you to do the same. 🙂 I’ll randomly select and email the winner now!
p.p.s. I randomly got inspired and made myself a new blog header (using PicMonkey) yesterday. If you’re reading this post in a feed reader, come on over to see it! What do you think? 🙂
