OBX 2015

This was a year for a beach trip with Mom & Don and Katherine & Lee to Duck.  There's something nice about the familiarity of Barrier Island Station, the kids love the giant pool, and the snack shack is always a hit.  After last year's Hurricane shortened trip, we couldn't have asked for better weather at the beach this year.  The temperatures were never above the low 80's, and for the first half of the week the Ocean water was warmer than I can ever remember.



We had a few new adventures in store for this year's trip.  Last year Owen and I went hang gliding off the dunes at Jockey's Ridge (well Owen went hang gliding, and I went scooting along a foot off the ground while attached to a hang glider ;-), and Owen was set on another adventure this year, so we decided to go parasailing.  Wednesday morning Katherine & Lee, Owen & Elaine, and Nora & I all took turns being harnessed to a giant parachute and towed behind a boat on the sound.  Katherine & Lee had parasailed once before in Mexico, and were thoroughly impressed with the spectacular safety measures here in the States (e.g. not crossing the lines between two parasailing tow boats and dropping people out of the sky).  Owen was of course thrilled to give parasailing a try, though I suspect Elaine could have dealt with not hearing all of Katherine & Lee's stories beforehand.  Nora declared herself 'scared-cited', but once we were up she thought it was just like a peaceful swing with a view, and couldn't stop smiling.



The other fun new toy for this trip was my GoPro.  After giving it a full workout on our ski trip last winter, it was time to try it out in the waves.  We took some fun bodyboarding videos, but the coolest shots really came from the way it could freeze the churn of the surf in mid-air and the smiles in full grin :-)  Not to mention the fun parasailing selfies!



Katherine and Lee of course brought lots of games, and even signed us all up for a corn hole tournament.  Elaine & I won our first round match, but fell to the ringers brought in at the last minute to balance the bracket.  Katherine & Lee made it all the way to the finals, but fell to the same team that beat us in the second round.  We'll get em' next time.  The trip wasn't all fun and games though.  After our parasailing adventure Wednesday morning, Nora started feeling really tired, and by that night she was running a high fever that would last for the next 10 days, through the rest of the beach trip and all the way to Iowa, but that's a story for the next blog post...

(click here for all the pictures)