“A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it.” – Robert Orben

My feet are kicked up, the air conditioning is blaring and I don’t have a care in the world because I’m on vacation.  This week we are in the Outer Banks of North Carolina enjoying a vacation with a great group of friends.  I like to think of myself as someone who has done a fair amount of traveling but I’ve never been to the Outer Banks and I’m so glad we are here.   If you’ve never been, you should put it on your bucket list of places to go.  In my opinion, it’s one of the best family vacation spots on the east coast.  The area of the OBX that we are in has house after house of huge three story rental homes near the beach that accommodate multiple families, which is what we have choose to do.

I must say it’s interesting to bring four different families together (all of us friends of course) and throw us all in a house, talk about a social experiment.  Four different ways of raising kids, grocery shopping, sleep patterns, dietary habits, and just basic ways of doing EVERYTHING, with one common interest, having an incredible vacation with our kids.  We have four different families comprised of seven adults and eight kids ranging in ages from two all the way to fifteen.   Being in this big house together feels a little bit like the show “Big Brother” meets “19 Kids and Counting.”  After we worked out a few kinks and  had some growing pains, I think we have figured it all out and are having a GREAT time.  I must say we have a really great group of kids and the adults are ok too, I guess.

Robert Orben said it best about vacations when we said, “A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it.”  I would say besides the eight noisy kids (ok, in all fairness the 15 year old is quiet) in our house, this is one of the more relaxing family vacations we have ever taken.  One whole week with NOTHING and I mean nothing to do, no expectations, no schedules, no plans.  Of course we are having some wonderful new experiences and still go to bed every night dog tired.  My stance on this week has been to not plan anything and so far, it’s worked.  My brain is officially on vacation.  It’s nice to get up in the morning and not have your whole day planned, it’s how every vacation should be.

One of the happiest things for me to do in life is to be by or near the water and this week is no exception.  Being by the ocean is always so refreshing and rejuvenating to me, besides going to bed with sand in your ears, teeth and many places that just don’t need to be talked about.  I love to see the kids in bathing suits and flip flops all day, with the sea salt in their hair and a boogie board under there arm, just like real beach bums, walking to the beach.  The beach brings out the kid in everyone.  It’s awesome to watch the amazing dads we have with us sit with the kids and build sand castles, the grown-ups body surfing in the rough night time surf or the look on everyone’s face when they catch a crab on the beach at night.  Priceless moments that you can only have at one of my favorite places, the beach.

I’m sitting out on the 3^rd floor deck tonight finishing up this blog from the other day and I have the whole house to myself.  Being by myself always centers me and makes me listen to my inner thoughts.  I’m enjoying the light ocean breeze, smell of the salt in the air and the sounds of crickets.  My hair is full of ocean salt and sand from the beach, I’m not sure if I showered today, my thighs are chaffed, skin is burned, my back is sore and I’m definitely lacking sleep from a long night of fun but as I listen to my inner thoughts, the only thing going through my head is, how did I get so lucky?

As I look out into our community, there is house after house full of families that are getting to experience this truly beautiful place.  This vacation hasn’t been perfect but I’m so glad I’ve been able to share this experience with my two favorite people in the whole world and a boat load of really GREAT friends.   I hope you and your families are as fortunate as mine and are able to share an amazing vacation this summer with great people.  If you can’t get away to somewhere like the OBX, treat every day like it’s a vacation and de-stress yourself from the craziness of the daily grind.  We have a few more days left in this vacation and my plan is to not plan anything, go where the wind blows me, and take home stories and memories that will always be with me.   On that note I’m finishing up my bog entry because I have nothing to do and the rest of the day to do it.