Thanksgiving in the Outer Banks

For the week of Thanksgiving we drove to the Outer Banks and met up with three other families.  We all rented a beach house together and had a fabulous week together.  One of the things we did was visit the Bodie Island Lighthouse.

As you can see in the background, the Bodie Island Lighthouse was having a  facial.  Luckily, I have been here a couple of times and have better photos of the lighthouse.  This was the first time my friend had ever been.  Hopefully she'll come back another year and get a picture without all the scaffolding surrounding the lighthouse.

We had a house full of fun kiddos.  We had eight girls and one boy.  Luckily the boy was one of the younger kiddos and so he didn't mind hanging out with the girls.  We also took turns each evening cooking a meal.  Yum!

And we played games almost every evening.  The kids usually jumped into the hot tubs in the evenings and since they didn't need all of the adults watching them, we'd enjoy some fun game playing.  We taught our friends to play Seven Wonders and I think they all enjoyed it.  We also played Dominion with the final expansion, Dark Ages.  

The weather didn't cooperate too much while we were in the Outer Banks.  The first four days were full of lots of wind and sometimes rain.  But we did sneak in a few trips to different locations.  Here I am at the Wright Brother's Memorial.  We actually stopped by here three or four times because we didn't have enough time to do everything or I was too tired to see everything.  But since after the first time we didn't have to pay an entrance fee, it was really easy to do several short visits.

One of the first days of sunshine had us out and visiting the Currituck Lighthouse.  We took the opportunity to see it with friends and even hiked up to the very top to look out on the beach town below.  This was the last time we saw the sun that day.  By the time we made it down to the bottom of the lighthouse the clouds had moved in and it was windy and cold again.

SM pulled out Axis and Allies, a game he used to play in high school with one of the guys in this picture.  I had heard the stories about how long these games could go and so I declined the opportunity to play.  And it was a good thing I didn't play.  I think it took them around four or five hours to play the game and they didn't finish until midnight.

We filled up all these places with great friends and their kiddos.  We took an opportunity for everyone to share something they were grateful for that Thanksgiving.  I just wept the whole time...I'm blaming pregnancy hormones on that one.  Anyway, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving with lots of good memories and good food.

We deep fried two turkey, had mashed potatoes and gravy, apple cider green beans, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, rolls and lots of different kinds of pies and cakes and don't forget the Old Dominion Rootbeer.

The Friday after Thanksgiving was the first time I ventured to the beach.  The sun finally came out and the day was mild.  While at the  Outer Banks I reached the 30 week mark in my pregnancy and I was still feeling great.

What a wonderful week! (Sat. Nov. 17- Sat. Nov. 24, 2012)