Family Fun

The family took a week long trip to Ocracoke Island last week. We vacationed here in 2009 and the parents decided it was time to go back. We had plans to offshore fish but the weather did not agree with those plans. Although we missed out on recreating this memory, we still had a wonderful trip! The North Carolina coast is beautiful and unspoiled. All development is around the bay on Ocracoke because the beach and sand dunes are protected. It is truly wonderful to walk on the beach at night, among the ghost crabs, with zero lighting. Y'all, the ghost crabs were in the hundreds (maybe thousands)! It was the craziest thing we had ever seen. They swarmed the beach at night. This is not great news for sea turtles eggs but we did enjoy watching them overtake the sand as we walked.


Ocracoke Island is a two hour ferry boat ride from the main land at Cedar Island. The ferry ride to and from Ocracoke was a little rough. The waves rolled us and our vehicles for quite a while on both trips. Our vehicle was covered with salt spray after the trip home. I now understand why there were cars on the ferry with rusted back bumpers. We saw shrimp boats and passed many other ferry boats on the way. The Outer Banks ferry system is a well oiled machine! There are six ferry boats alone that travel between Ocracoke and Cape Hatteras as a free shuttle service. We also took this hour long trip to and from Cape Hatteras to see the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and the Bodie Lighthouse. The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is the tallest lighthouse in North America! We climbed that thing! It definitely felt like the tallest lighthouse in that humidity. I was drenched in sweat about half way up. The fiancé was even brave enough to come out on the lighthouse landing and walked all the way around! I was so proud of him. Mom loves a good lighthouse so this was her big exciting day. We love them as well but I think they were the highlight of her trip. She celebrated her 55th birthday on this trip with a big pan of brownies (complete with candles)! I hope brownies grant a birthday wish just as well as cake and cupcakes.

Ocracoke has a small village filled with bicycles and golf carts. They are actually a much more preferred way of transportation due to the narrow roads and many pedestrians. We decided to try out both on this trip. Our golf cart rental was really nice because we were able to see new parts of the island. Plus, it was pretty fun to zip around with everyone. We went to the Ocracoke Lighthouse and enjoyed some North Carolina classics; Cheerwine and Sun Drop. I have to admit, the Cheerwine was pretty phenomenal. We agreed that it tasted like cherry Dr. Pepper. The lighthouse is about half the height of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. It is closed to the public so we were unable to climb the little guy. We also took the path to Springer's Point. It is closed to all except foot traffic and leads to the highest point on the island.  It was another hot day but the view from the beach was beautiful. I wish we had known to wear our bathing suits. The Ocracoke Museum held a journal entry from an 1899 resident of the island. The entry spoke about a hurricane and the potential plan to go to Springer's Point as a high point and safe haven. Only six houses still stood on the island after the hurricane passed and hundreds of people left on the ferry the next morning. I can only imagine what it must have been like to live on an island during this time. 

We ate so much great food on this trip. Literally, we stuffed ourselves. My favorite meal came from Eduardo's Taco Stand! We spotted this truck on the first day and did not make it there until our last day. I ordered crab meat tacos without knowing there would be three. I underestimated myself and inhaled all of them! The taco truck was definitely a hit. The line out front should have been a dead give away.

Some other random things we liked about our trip:
*The colony of 40-50 ducks that congregated in the yards
*The Cheerwine float that my sister got from the ice cream shop
*The small little stores scattered throughout the village area
*Our BINGO game- We played for scratch off tickets and it got competitive! Mom knows how to get us involved!
*The Flying Melon Restaurant
*The ring toss game we played on the beach- It was pretty intense at the end.
*Watching Daddy roll around in the sand/surf for 10-15 minutes
*Our golf cart driving difficulties
*The military Osprey aircraft that flew over us while on the beach- It was pretty awesome to see! 

The Question

 

We're ENGAGED!! It has been 10 wonderful days since our engagement. "We are now one step closer to being our own little two person family." 

This post will be some sort of video explanation of our most wonderful and life changing weekend on Sanibel Island.

My fiancé's favorite place in Florida is Sanibel Island. It is "now our favorite place in Florida."

Warning: This post is overwhelmingly about food.

We got a late start on dinner the first night. We ended up at Island Cow because we'd both been there before a knew it would be good. As usual, we had a wait a while to get our food. It was absolutely worth it though. We started with some insanely good chocolate chip muffins (complimentary) and ended with that massive slice of chocolate cake on the right.

Job well done.

The next morning, July 4th, we took a ferry to Caya Costa State Park (on the left). This is another place my fiancé couldn't be quiet about. Now I know why. Just look at it! We felt like we were in another country. 1. The water was insanely clear and green. 2. There were almost no people on the beach! It was July 4th and there were probably only 3 other boats there when we arrived. 3. We found TONS of really great shells, a sea urchin and sand dollar.

We only stayed for a few hours but we could have stayed all day.

We spent the rest of the day at our hotel beach on Sanibel. We found lots of sea creatures here too! I was previously unaware but now I know that I am with a master sand dollar and sea star excavator. He probably found 50 sea stars and even more sand dollars in our two days on the beach. I love finding things like this so I repeatedly mentioned how "perfect" the day was. It was pretty often. "Today has been the perfect day." That was basically all I said for the rest of the afternoon and at dinner. Little did I know...

We ate dinner at Cip's on Sanibel. I actually chose this place the night before. I was later told that he did not plan to propose after this dinner but changed his mind after our wonderful time at Caya Costa and hearing me repeat endlessly about how perfect the day was.
Regardless, the ring was in his pocket at this dinner!
After eating every last bit of my crab stuffed salmon, he convinced me that we needed to go to the beach before the fireworks. I briefly fought it but gave in pretty quickly after his persuasive argument that we were going to look for baby sea turtles. What?! That doesn't even make sense. It may have been because I was so full.

Things that happened just prior:
*I made a slightly big deal about having to stop and take my shoes off, then put them in the car before we could go on the beach.
*I stabbed my big toe with a shell (because I took my shoes off), which made it bleed.
*I kept talking endlessly about all the sea turtle nests we passed. (This beach was covered in nest!)
We stopped in a spot that had zero people and the sunset right around the corner. He started telling me how much he loves me. He asked if I knew he would love me forever. He told me he was a better man since he had met me. He had been telling me how much he loved me ALL day so it did not occur to me until he started to slide away from me and get down on one knee. I immediately covered my face and something like, "oh my god!" came out. The tears came then as well. He then asked me if I would do him the greatest honor, make him the luckiest man in the world and become his wife. We are a little fuzzy on whether or not he actually said, will you marry me? I obviously said yes through lots of tears. He asked if I "even wanted to see the ring" before putting the ring on my finger. He then said, "You're not my girlfriend anymore- you're my fiancé. This is when the water works really kicked in. A sweet couple, who were celebrating their 46th wedding anniversary, took our picture and we then proceeded to try and find the fireworks while I called family. We spent the rest of the night calling family, friends and enjoying the sound of fiancé.

It was perfectly simple!

We spent our last day on the beach in engagement bliss! 

During what seemed like hurricane winds and rain, we pulled into il Tesoro Bistro for our celebratory dinner. We had not planned to go here but it was literally the only place still open after we watched the U.S. Women win the World Cup.

I ate the best ravioli of my life!

Since we weren't stuffed and feeling bad enough about ourselves, we also had tiramisu for dessert.




Pigs (sausage) in a blanket