Tampa Family Vacay

a few weekends ago, cory and i traveled to tampa to visit my brother and his family.  they came to north carolina last summer to visit us, and we had such a great time we decided to keep the tradition alive again this summer.  in my opinion, these are the best kinds of vacations... nothing beats having fun and relaxing with family (though if anyone can clue me in on how to fight the depression that follows once you leave, that'd be great)!

my brother and sister-in-law were wonderful hosts and showed us a great time!

their neighborhood is also home to many sandhill cranes.  these birds are really big, and seem to be pretty comfortable around their human neighbors.

my brother's mini pineapple farm in his backyard.

the first night we were there, we visited in the loop brewing company.  this place had such a chill atmosphere and some yummy beer selections as well!

grace and brian jr. had a good time battling one another in giant jenga!

the next day we traveled to honeymoon island to take the ferry over to caladesi island state park  where we spent the day at the beach.

on the ferry ride

i love a good mangrove.

view of the island from the ferry

we made it to the island!

ummmmm.... okay.

i. heart. florida.

after a small hike, we made it to the beach!

the water was incredibly warm, and the most beautiful clear turquoise color.

i'll definitely be coming back ;)

after going home and cleaning the salt water and sunscreen off our bodies, we headed into downtown tampa to check out the armature works.  the building dates back to 1910 and was once the storage and maintenance facility for tampa electric's streetcars.  now it's filled with tons of shops, eateries and bars.

how adorable is this flower shop?

on our final full day there, my brother hosted a bbq and invited the rest of our family.  here he can be seen stuffing a can of beer into a chicken's butt.

the grill/smoke masters!

if only scratch and sniff computer screens were a real thing....

every southern bbq requires a big pot of boiled peanuts!

corn,  you're pretty.

who knew we'd eventually get along so well ;)

my nephew recruited my dad to help him test out his homemade walkie talkie!

he's so silly.

after the rest of the guests left we broke out monopoly.  i've lost to cory many times at this game (actually, i've never seen him lose to anyone in monopoly.... until now)!  grace kicked all of our butts!  future real estate mogul, perhaps?

my brother and nephew kept donating money to me because i was losing so badly.  haha, they're the sweetest.

florida sent us off with this gorgeous sunset!  until next time...

front porch refresh

cory and i recently updated our front porch a bit.  we painted our front door, touched up the railings with a fresh coat of white paint, and installed a new light fixture i've been obsessing over for a good year until i finally caved and bought it.

before... our front door was sort of a dark eggplant color.  also, i was never a big fan of the light fixture that came with our house.

... and after!

we went with a tropical vibe (pillows are from home depot).

i love our mint door!  it's so fun.

louie says "come on in, guys"!

here's an evening view.

obsessed!

and one more pic of this little guy, just because he's so damn cute!

outer banks vacation

a few weeks ago, we traveled along with cory's family for a week long vacation to the outer banks of north carolina.  the outer banks is a long thin strip of land just off the coast.  the drive in is beautiful, with high sand dunes surrounding both sides of the road at certain points.  it was our first time in this magical place, so we were definitely looking forward to seeing, trying and tasting new things!  with it still being spring, the weather wasn't the best... but the last few days were perfect and the sun made an appearance long enough to see a sunset or two (a few of us even returned hoe with a slight sunburn, haha).  no matter the weather, you really can't beat a week with your family in a beachfront home, eating and drinking to your hearts content.  here's a look at some of our time there:

 in the car on the way there... louie was very curious about where we were heading.

 we arrived!

not a shabby view from the top deck.

the back of the house.

 the beach behind the house.

the first full day proved to be cold, cloudy and windy... so we figured it was a good time to visit the cape hatteras light station.

interestingly, the lighthouse was moved from it's original location due to erosion, and now sits 1500 feet off the shore (it's original distance from the sea).

we opted out of climbing the stairs to the top of the lightbouse, and settled for a selfie in front instead.

luckily our house had a hot tub, which was the perfect complement to the cold, windy weather.  louie enjoyed hanging out alongside the hot tube too!

another windy, cloudy day was spent fishing on the avon fishing pier.   i caught three small fish (none really worth keeping), but even if i had reeled in a big one i probably still would've begged cory to throw it back for me.  what can i say.... i love all animals.

one of my fish... i didn't want to touch it.  haha.

cory, doin' that tourist thang.

we had a wonderful seafood dinner out celebrating my brother-in-law's birthday!

walking through the dunes to the beach!

finally it's sunny!!!  time for a beer on the beach.

there were lots of tiny broken shells smoothed over by the waves.

louie was also enjoying the sunshine!

this tiny crab peeked out of his hole long enough for me to snap a quick picture!

crab hole!

no filter!  you seriously can't make these colors up... it's breathtaking.

there was a really cool huge ship anchor just off shore.  the birds would rest there and stretch their wings out to dry.

untouched sand.

i braved the freezing temps of the pool for this photo op on my pineapple float!

louie was pooped from all that time in the sun!

one of our final nights we had a low country boil.  it was amazingly delicious... my mouth is water now just thinking about it.

 we managed to get a beautiful sunset at the end of the week!

louie... enjoying the sunset.

the whole fam!

and our little fam!

this vacation was so much fun, not just because we were staying on oceanfront property and didn't have to report to work for a week, but mostly because we were able to spend quality time with family we don't get to see nearly enough.  we are going to try to make this a yearly tradition, and honestly i wouldn't mind going to the outer banks again (maybe we will wait until it's actually summer next time though, haha).