Food, Family, and Fun! (part 1 that is)

A little over a week ago, Jeff's brother Scott, his cute wife Jessica, and their adorable daughter Ellie came to town for a visit.  This was the first time we had met Ellie, who is now almost 12 months old, and we were all taken in by her sweetness, wrinkly-nose smile, intoxicating giggles, and cuddly personality (She really is very cute, I loved spoiling her).  We had to start the trip out right by having some of the local barbecue.  I know this may sound a bit funny, but I LOVED the mac and cheese! What? That was supposed to be for the little kids?  Guess I missed that memo (I had fun talking to the waitress there. She had a sign that said, caution attack waitress. I asked if it was true, she asked if I wanted her to bite me....the conversation stopped there.).

After they traveled across the country, arriving late in the afternoon on one day, we made sure we gave them lots of time to acclimatize . . . um, wait, no, we all woke up and were out the door on our way to Ocracoke Island by 6:00 am the following morning :) (I take responsibility for that one. I thought we could only get to the island through one of the long ferries, and I didn't want to get there late in the evening, where is the fun in that)  We were all pretty excited to check out the ferry once we were on, and had plenty of time to do so, since it took just under three hours to make it to the island.  On the journey, we saw dolphins along the boat, lots of birds, and a submarine (And by a submarine, Kathleen means a boat. We were like 3 miles away, and she yells "hey isn't that a submarine?" No dear, it isn't.  It was also funny when we saw the dolphins. Lily was on the top deck and screamed at the top of her lungs. All the people on the party deck, drinking their booze (at 10 in the MORNING-I guess no one was going to the island to work) looked up in such alarm. It was funny).  Okay, so it wasn't a submarine, it was actually another ferry, but from a long ways off, it looked a lot like a surfacing submarine, honest!  Once we made it to our camp-site (which was awesome, we were right over the dunes from the beach, like a four minute walk), we set up camp, and headed to the beach to play in the surf and sand.  The brothers decided it would be fun to cover Ellie up to her waist in the sand, pretty funny looking, and she did seem to enjoy it, right up until Herman decided to help dig in her direction, and launched sand in her face, but she was a good sport. Here are a few more of our favorites from the journey:

LOVED how secluded the beach was. . .
There were probably no more than 20 people as far as you could see. It was wonderful.

Ocracoke light house- Grace was really concerned about a cat that we saw hanging around here. She wanted to bring it home.

'Smores galore! And yes, we cooked s'mores over the gas stove. Easier that way. There was quite a wind over the dunes, so keeping a fire going was at times difficult. Also, as you can see, I made sure Ellie had plenty of sugar before going to bed. Making my play for the favorite uncle!

Chasing ghost crabs at night Grace also freaked out about the crabs. At one point we had like 4 in a bucket, and then we let them all go. One scurried over her foot, she was not happy. Herman, on the other paw, was. He thought he was quite the hunter, although he frequently had no idea where the crab was and would bark and pounce in the WRONG direction. Silly dog.- Gazing into the vast star-filled sky-

Waking up early to catch the sunrise (this was beautiful, sharing it with Kathleen was fun)- exploring a small town- stopping for taffy- investing in silly banz (I really wanted some, but, you know, I'm old)- enjoying tasty grilled steak and dutch oven meals (these were really good, my brother has my fathers butcher skills)- playing games (and watching the cards blow away in the middle of American/Idiot (depending on what country you are from)- telling stories (I love being with my siblings because of the different perspectives on the same stories that we have)- introducing Ellie to her first marshmallow, chocolate, sweets (again, I am the major one at fault here. I even made her a reverse s'more, chocolate and graham cracker inside the marshmallow). . .- Herman sneaking out of the tent in the middle of the night, and coming back, spending the rest of the night tethered to Jeff's ankle (this was my least favorite part, that dog can yank hard, and every time it woke me from the best part of my dream)- cold, refreshing showers (with a nice frog in there to throw into Scott's shower stall)-

-time for family photos, and silliness

-a shorter ferry ride to Hatteras, getting to stand at the very front of the boat and watch the flocks of pelicans, and b-lining boats cross our path (the kids really wanted to sit inside and do card games, but man, who would want to miss such sites. I love being on a boat. I need one of these things. Kath, can I get a boat?)

-seeing Hatteras lighthouse, and Bode Island lighthouse again (although this time it looked a bit more like a fancy q-tip-or a Cape Canaveral rocket ship) (I love lighthouses, if this whole science thing doesn't work out, I want to be a lighthouse man. I will wear a yellow raincoat and hat, a full (or as full as I can grow it) beard, and a bubble pipe, because, you know I don't smoke).

-stopping for a picnic lunch at the lost colony, watching rehearsal for the summer season production (I thought the guy battling with the mop was the coolest), discovering a new subset of tree population: pine-cones growing on a deciduous tree (I honestly thought it was for a minute, which was very confusing, until Jeff pointed out they were broken off from the pine trees-being a biologist, I know that isn't possible, plus I am observant-sometimes), learning that Ocracoke is my new favorite beach (mine too, mine too), wishing it was a bit closer (ya, I agree with that), wanting to go back soon (also, counting down the days)!