After a few days in Corolla, NC, the family packed up and headed to a new beach town. While it’s not ideal to move mid-vacation, my parents wanted to experience different beach spots as part of their retirement home search. So off we went! Week two begins.
Week 2: NORTH TOPSAIL BEACH, NORTH CAROLINA
None of us had been to Topsail Island before, we picked North Topsail Beach on a whim just to check out a new place. Coming from our giant house in refined and beautiful Corolla, there was a little adjustment period. Topsail was a different kind of beach town – more locals, more fishing, more confederate flags, and more wild animals.
Due to all of the recent shark attacks in North Carolina & the dozens of fishermen on our beach, we didn’t go swimming in the ocean at all. It was definitely intended to be a fishermen’s beach, not meant for beach goers.
But we still went out to the beach everyday and made the best of it. Our beach was heaven for my Mom, who is obsessed with finding sea shells. The beach was covered with thousands of amazing shells, sand dollars, and shark teeth. So while we couldn’t float in the waves, we refocused our energy to sunbathing, reading (6 books that week!), and shells – lots and lots of shells.
During our week at North Topsail Beach we also got our fill of fresh and local seafood. I’ve never eaten so much shrimp in a week: shrimp and grits a ya ya, shrimp boil, and a low country boil.
The family celebrated the 4th of July on our final day at the beach with patriotic jello shots – a fun Pinterest project that taught me you can gelatinize all liquids, including milk. I also figured how to take the fun sparkler writing photos on my nice camera, so we had lots of fun with that. Thank god for Pinterest.
And just like that, our beach time with the family was over. We all packed up and headed back to reality (work, bills, commuting, etc.) One car headed to Wisconsin, another to DC.
Lucky for us, our car back to DC had one extra passenger. Devan joined us in the city for a few days before flying off to visit friends in Texas. It was nice to get some sister time before she returned to Australia for the next year or so.
These family vacations are wonderful, but always make me sad at the end when you realize you won’t be back together for another 6 months. It’s so tough living far from your loved ones, so I’m hoping my parents make the NC move permanent sooner rather than later. #selfish
Next week I’ll share our GoPro photos from the beach! We tried to get the hang of it before we take it to Europe, so we have some funny underwater practice photos to share.
reidmore 