Hello everybody! Matt, the kids and I stayed in the Outer Banks (Duck to be precise) last week for our annual beach trip with Matt’s family.
Here’s a recap of the meals and some of our adventures.
For a decade we’ve been going to Duck for a week in July! Those of you who have children know that traveling with young children (especially a 2 year old) is definitely not something that makes you feel energized and rested, but it was fun to be with everyone, and the children had a blast running around with their cousins ​​(boys aged 9, 7 and 3) and the children of some family friends (who lived in a separate house) and lots of swimming.
I’ve always loved swimming so I really enjoy the swim intensive aspect of the trip too! The sea is my absolute favorite – I wish I could spend all day swimming around and jumping over the waves. I look forward to when the kids are older and can play in the waves with me – that will be a game changer!
It took Wes some time to get used to the sea – he was quite scared for the first part of the week – but towards the end of the trip he picked up a little momentum and wanted to be held in the waves or on the shore raised when the surf came.
We also brought a baby pool down to the beach on a couple of days and this went down really well with the kids which was great as we actually got to relax for a second!
When we took the kids to the beach it was always in the morning, then we would go back to the house around 1am to have lunch and invite Wes over for a nap. When the time came it always felt like we had finally settled in on the beach Time to go back! Oh well. Trips like this get easier as, most importantly, Wes gets older and his naps stop.
We had a pool at our house, and when Wes was taking his naps, we usually spent those hours hanging out in the pool with the big kids. Giant made great progress swimming without her flotation devices in the pool this week, cool to see! I can’t wait for her to host underwater tea parties and handstand competitions with me. 😉
As for adventures away from the beach and pool, I took an early yoga class on a few mornings which was super nice. I love Village Yoga in Duck and always make a point of coming there when we’re in town!
I went to her classes once with my sister-in-law Morgana, once with Morgana and our other sister-in-law Jess, and then once alone, always at 8am so I was back on time for the beach/pool fun.
One of the things I love about Duck is the long and beautiful jetty over the water on the ocean side. On an overcast morning we took the kids out to take a break from the water and had fun exploring.
Matt and I usually try to do a run or two together in Duck (sometimes with our friend Thomas, who is also there at the same time with his family), but unfortunately that didn’t happen this year – it just felt like it would be asking too much of his parents to look after both of our children during the peak morning hours, especially as they babysat one of the evenings so a large group of us could go out. And it was way too hot to try while Wes was napping!
Oh well. Yoga felt really good and Matt managed to go for a hot run one morning without me. Maybe next year! I ended up not running at all this year because yoga sounded nicer when I didn’t have a running partner, especially since it was so hot and humid!
Speaking of hot and humid, the town of Duck is hosting a cute parade on July 4th. It was warm outside but we grabbed a shady spot and the big kids loved it especially as people were giving out sweets. Our favorite swimmer was this one where a guy happened to be taking a dip! Very creative.
Wes wasn’t particularly fond of the parade and instead mostly tried to run away and explore, or he wanted to be held; When we got back to the house we were all tired and sweaty!
Let’s get to the meal of the week!
have breakfast
For breakfast each day, I had a combo of the following: toast with nut butter, seasonal fruit (melon, peaches, berries, etc.), and an egg muffin (just like my scrambled egg muffins, except they’re not homemade—Matt and I have them get from us). Balducci is in VA and brought her).
I found the egg muffins with salsa, guacamole and hot sauce to be particularly delicious! It was really handy to have on hand for a quick morning protein option.
Lunch
Lunch consisted mostly of leftovers or simple sandwiches and was usually eaten by the pool at our house when Wes was napping. I made tacos two days out of some leftovers (more on dinner, which I got from later) – this one had leftover white fish for protein:
One day Matt made us sandwiches with turkey, cheese, pickles, etc.:
And another day I made tuna sandwiches for me and Riese:
Riese and I ate the rest of the tuna salad for lunch on the beach the next day; By this point, Matt had brought Wes back to his nap. This was the only day we stayed on the beach for lunch and Riese and I had fun hanging out until the afternoon just the two of us!
Dinner
The way dinners work on the trip is we usually have a couple of evenings where we’re in a big group with our friends at the other house, an evening where the kids stay at home with the grandparents and the parents can go out, and then each family signs up for a night.
We signed up for the first night of the trip and to make it easier this year we decided to bring food – we got a ready to eat fajita meal from Balducci’s (a local grocery/catering shop – we got the egg muffins from there) and honestly it ended up being delicious and saved us a lot of stress.
It’s just so messy and busy with all the kids and it was great not having to worry about making it to the grocery store and preparing dinner for a large group. We just heated everything up and off we went!
(We discovered Balducci’s catering when our friends brought it for our recent Poconos trip – brilliant. 10/10 would definitely do this again for future group trips.)
I opted for the steak and made some generously loaded tacos. The Mexican street corn was delicious too!
On Monday we had my brother-in-law and sister-in-law’s specialty: peanut noodles! Drew and Morgana do this for the group every year and it’s so good. I love it so much that there is a variant on the blog if you want to try it: Creamy Peanut Butter Noodles.
As always, it was delicious and the rocket salad as a side dish was just the thing.
On the third night of the trip, a large group met at our family friend’s house around the corner. On July 4th we held a big BBQ; I had a burger and a hot dog and some baked beans – and went back for watermelon after this picture!
The party was quite stressful because their house has a lot of separate rooms and balconies and levels so it’s hard to keep track of the kids and Wes ended up running away when both Matt and I thought the other one would be him watch, ugh. So not exactly relaxing but fun to see everyone.
After dinner, I took Wes over to our house to go to bed, and Matt stayed with Riese — she looked forward to making sparklers, eating popsicles, and hanging out late with the older kids on the Fourth of July. I couldn’t see any fireworks from the balcony of our house, but when I put Wes to sleep I was rewarded with a beautiful sunset!
On Wednesday we spent our evening with Matt’s brother and their wives and our friends Tom and Janice from the other house! A big thank you to the grandparents who made it possible for us – we really enjoyed the free evening!
Like last year, we treated ourselves to an early dinner at the NC Coast (yum – hot tip, get there fairly early to get a table – we got there at 4:30 and snagged the last big dinner!). We had plenty of chips and dips and raw oysters to share, and then I settled on two appetizers for my dinner — a strawberry salad with scallops and some roasted oysters with pimento cheese and pork belly. It was all delicious!
After dinner we walked down the promenade to Eventide, a pretty spot right on the water, and had a few more drinks and watched the sunset.
On Thursday night we had another big group party together, but this time it was at our house and it was a Hawaiian Luau style pool party!
My father-in-law did everything to prepare it – look at this menu! He and my mother-in-law are celebrating their 50th anniversary in Hawaii this year so this was a fun nod to their future adventures and I loved all the notes he added on each dish and its origins!
Here’s the entire route (taken a little late as I missed the reveal because I was feeding Wes upstairs…he couldn’t bear to eat out by the pool and kept trying to swim)!
My plate of a side of Wes + Matt back in the pool (I was in the pool with Wes for the first hour of the party, then Matt bathed him and got dressed before dinner and of course he just wanted to get it right back in so we gave up and put him back in his bathing suit so he could continue swimming after dinner):
My mango salsa recipe (optional with habanero and jalapeno on the side) appeared, yum! It paired beautifully with pork and chicken.
For dessert there was shave ice! The kids loved it!
Served with lime cake, coconut pudding, coconut banana bread cake…
And pineapple with this super unique spice “plum powder” – have you tried it yet? Apparently it’s very popular in Hawaii! It had a really interesting taste, kind of sweet and savory at the same time.
The luau was really fun – the kids had a blast in the pool, the food was delicious and it was nice to have everyone in one place so we could spend a little more time and chat than at the previous party. Win Everywhere!
Our last dinner of the trip on Friday was pizza! We kept it simple and also brought along some side salads and leftover chicken to clear out the fridge.
The others stayed until the next morning, but Matt and I vowed to stop doing day trips to/from the beach after taking us 9 hours (it was supposed to be 4.5) for a year, so we hit the road Friday after dinner on the way.
It was an easy, fast ride with no traffic and the kids were asleep. Home at midnight and so nice to wake up in our own beds.
Another OBX week is coming up. Thanks for the fun time – see you next year Duck!