On our way! Close to 36-hours of traveling with a 2 & 4 year old was challenging, but these two were sweet & helpful as expected!
Eating dinner on the train to Finn & Reef's house where we spent the night before our flight the next day.
The San Francisco airport had a cool yoga room! I told Avi I wanted to take a picture & she did this pose all on her own!
"Daddy!" Finally! It's so nice to have a friend, lover & helper! (See Mila poking her head around my back?!)
Mila is potty trained, but that doesn't mean she can hold it long. Here's a bathroom break for her and a shady stop for the rest of us.
Made it to the Outer Banks - sandy, sunny, dunes & quintessential East Coast beach houses.
A public dock/boardwalk in beautiful Duck, North Carolina.
Blue crabs
Potty training a 2.1 year old means bringing a potty everywhere!
Sometimes you get tired and have to lie down… Avi is a sweet sister and give company to her tired sister.
This boardwalk was gorgeous and long…
Chica and Aveah all dressed up and ready to go!
Normal sandy road on the Outer Banks
Breakfast outside at a campground. Hardly any clothes on it's so warm!
We got to see some crabbing & Avi was so intrigued!
Sweets! Mila chomped threw hers, Avi made it last by licking slowly (she didn't finish it & wanted to save it for later).
My 4-month-pregnant shadow.
Avi loves the waves in the ocean!
Crab dinner - neither kid really liked this king crab (not a local crab - blue crabs are the local ones).
Playing with light-up balloons Amy Leach gave Mila for her birthday!
There was a full moon and a beach near our campsite that night. Avi asked if me and her could take a walk on the beach like the mom & daughter do in this book we read. So of course we did. It was magical coming up the dune, cresting it, and seeing the moon's bright reflection on the dark ocean. We went and put our toes in the warm water.
The next morning on the same beach. Avi says, "Aww, Mom. The waves love me!"
Mila was a little afraid to go down at first - that's Avi the little dot below running to the water. But soon Mila was wading in the water, too.
Bodie Lighthouse. The lighthouses in North Carolina are not at the waters edge, but inland for some reason!
See our little treasures? This lighthouse was inland… strange!
A cool aquarium on the Outer Banks has this albino & regular crocodile.
Tiger sharks and other sharks & all sorts of fish!!!
Second Lighthouse of the day!
The picture that almost got michael arrested! (Read below)
So, traveling in 163-square-foot space with no real table and a carpet floor is difficult with a 2-year-old during meal time, so we've ate almost all our meals picnic style outside.
While visiting this lighthouse I realized how it was already dinner time. So I told Michael that Avi and I will go make dinner in the motorhome and bring it back to you and Mila here on the grass. Well, in the 20 minutes I was gone, Mila did her favorite thing: take her clothes on and off and on and off... Michael took pictures of her - both clothed & naked. (By the way, there was like nobody around - we maybe saw like 20 people in the hour we were there - and most of them were far away by the Lighthouse.). Well, about 5 minutes after we started eating, some cops came up. I thought they were going to tell us the park was closing soon. Instead, they said they received a call about a kid getting naked and a man taking photos! Can you believe someone called?! At first I was just amused at the ridiculousness of it, but later I got paranoid. Now, I'm just a little mad, and mostly sad that someone was so insecure and fearful to make that call. Anyways, the cops called in our IDs, saw that we were legit, and moved on (but not with an apology, but a warning! How dare they?!) For the rest of our time in the South, we kept Mila fully clothed - despite her protests!
Our campsite that night. This campground was empty!
Shoes. Shoes. Shoes! Doesn't matter if they are mucking boots in a hardware store - our girls are interested!
Crossing to Ocracoke Island on the ferry.
Inside the ferry.
The dock at Ocracoke. Avi really wanted to catch crabs, so we got a line and some bait. She caught one within 5 minutes! Then we didn't catch anything for the next hour.
Pulling in "Blissa"
Avi pulled her up and Maren netted her.
Mila playing contentedly by herself.
Looking for spots to throw line to catch crabs!
Pulling up a crab!
Avi named her crab "Blissa"! We poured her back after the hour of crabbing. She happily & speedily went home.
Sometimes you pee in the most picturesque of places when you're potty training.
Running to daddy.
Cool brick oven pizza place for dinner!
Father's Day! He wanted to swim in the warm ocean and fly his kite on the beach. So he did!
This beach was right by our camp site! Warm water, lots of sand crabs & sunshine!
Our main vehicle while in Ocracoke - all the locals drove these on the streets since the speed limit was 20mph max.
Dinner at a park. Avi is wiping Mila's dirty face.
Avi LOVED driving around in the cart. Maybe because she could talk to passerbys as I drove since there was no windows or doors to keep her voice in! She would say "hi" or yell "This is so much fun!!!" to EVERYONE we passed! When we returned it she gave it a hug goodbye. This little girl has so much love!
We put the girls to bed and Maren went out to watch the sunset. About 50 locals were out too, to watch the sunset!
It was quite spectacular: a deep red.
Breakfast at the same place the amazing sunset was the night before!
This girl gets so messy when she eats!!
Took a crabbing class through the parks service. We caught about 5 crabs and threw them all back. It was sorta counterintuitive to have our bare toes in the water with crabs with big claws - but they never came near us.
Back on the ferry, headed North now!
On the ferry, Mila thinks she's driving!
The raw barren beauty of the Outer Banks.
The super charming quaint town of St. Michael, Maryland. We ate dinner at this restuarant that had a huge deck just 18" above the water. It was a really cool experience!
Walking back to town after dinner.
Our guerrilla/free camping site in St Michaels!
A cute playground to match the cuteness of the town!
