Hicks Family Beach Trip

Bryan’s parents rented a beautiful house on the Outer Banks for a family reunion during the last full week of August. We had a great time and I’ve been dying to post about it except that I’m mourning how few pictures I took. This always happens at the beach. It is just a pain to take a camera to the beach with all that sand. And who wants their picture taken when they are in their swimsuit, post swim / pre shower and have just gotten to a good part in their book? Alas, I have realized that waiting will not make more pictures materialize and have resolved to make up for it during Christmas break when we will see Bryan’s family again.

Beach Trip Highlights:

- Norah flying a kite for the first time

- Getting texts and emails from family and friends asking about / informing us of the DC earthquake

- Lamenting as a family that missed out on earthquake stories and then (in the case of Susan and Kelsey only) celebrating that we did in fact feel the earthquake only attributed it to Kimball shaking beach chairs

- Endless ice cream sandwiches

- Beating the beach traffic both on the way there and on the way back to VA (thanks to Guy’s foresight in predicting the evacuation schedule)

- Pool Party complete with brats and Beach Boys music

- Family Tennis matches

- Spotting Octagons on walks. Norah has suddenly become obsessed with stop signs (due to a sesame street segment on octagons with Jack Black) and wanted nothing more than to find octagons. One night at bedtime I was asking her what she wanted to do the next day and if she wanted to put more sea shells in the bucket and she said quietly “yeah. Sea shells in the bucket.” and then after a pause she excitedly asked “octagons?”

- Morning walks on the beach

- Seeing a live soft shell blue crab with a big barnacle on the beach

I loved walking on the beach in the morning because it was so empty and beautiful.This is Norah running as fast as she can away from the water. I don’t know what her deal was but she was absolutely against ocean. We couldn’t bribe her to swim with us. Norah never backed down on her decision to not swim in the ocean but she took advantage of the pool every day. We were in the pool before 8am one day!Hot-tubbers L to R: Kimball, Kelsey, Susan, Courtney, BryanNorah with Grandpa Guy in her Jammies.