Week 12-OBX

Last week we finished our twelfth week in isolation/partial shut down.

The country raged in turmoil from a violent killing of a man during an arrest....riots, destruction, and outrage brought people to the streets to protest the killing, and unfortunately the protests became violent.

We had already made plans to head to the OBX and were already out of town when we heard of protests and destruction back at home.

It's made it that much harder to return.

While at the beach it seemed so "normal."

Yes, most stores were requiring masks, but we only went into our two favorites (the dog store and book store).  

We just tried to relax, and enjoy our time away.

Before everything went sideways last spring, Kevin was up for a month long sabbatical in June.

We made plans to head to our favorite place (the Outerbanks) for a week, then home for a week, followed by a ten day trip to New England, before some more time at home.

One the lockdowns began, we knew that the sabbatical would be delayed at least a year, and that the New England trip was also going to be deferred.  And the Outerbanks restricted non-resident property owners and visitors from coming to the island.

Until just a couple of weeks ago, we didn't think our week at the beach was going to happen.

So once we found out it was going to work, Kevin rented a Suburban, and we made plans to pack up one house, and move to another.

Three coolers, three dogs (and their crates), bags of food, some clothes, and some boys.

We had splurged back in December on a sound front house and had originally planned on Rebecca and Ted joining us.  Once again....that got deferred for maybe another trip.

We rolled in to our house, unloaded our circus shortly before a storm began.

We had just enough of a break between the storm and more rain to get a glimpse of how the sunsets would be for the week:

Nesting osprey's were all along the sound, and we could watch them from the deck checking their nests and hunting for fish.

Glorious view.

Every night it was amazing.

We rented a Stand Up Paddleboard and a kayak for the week.
Kevin was the first one to attempt the SUP.

The pups enjoyed numerous strolls around our neighborhood, lounging on the deck, listening & watching the birds, and meeting our neighbors.
They were exhausted every day.

One morning we played some mini golf, then drove to the end of the road for a walk along the maritime forest.  We've done this hike since Kieran was a baby.
So many years of photos of the boys at this same spot.

It used to take us hours to do the 1.5 mile walk.
It's these live oak trees that just beg to be climbed and admired.

They're just amazing.

Our evenings were spent admiring our view, and listening to music while playing some dominoes,

enjoying the pool and/or hot tub,

or playing hearts.

It was absolutely wonderful to be away.
Knowing all the heartache going on in the world, made it that much harder to leave.