North Carolina Vacation: Part 2

Unless you were living under a rock this past week you heard a thing or two about Hurricane Irene which made a pretty big mess of the east coast this weekend. As I already mentioned, Keith and I made the ironic choice of weekends to visit the beach in North Carolina and drove ourselves right into it. Whoops. It definitely wasn't the worst hurricane I've ever seen, and I'm sure that I'll see more in my days but this one was the first to stand in the way of something I really wanted (usually we were secretly excited about hurricanes because it meant no school!). Thankfully after we were evacuated from Bald Head we had a place to go to piece together the rest of our vacation (minus the beach, boo) and ride out the storm in safety. We were vacationing with my parents great friends Nick and Kathy who just happened to have purchased a home to retire in outside of Wilmington North Carolina, so on Friday morning when we left the island we made the 20 min drive up there. Nick and Kathy bought this house only weeks ago and haven't gotten to furnish it yet, but we set up some camp chairs, blew up air mattresses and watched the wind pick up in the woods behind their house. We spent Friday and Saturday reading and relaxing on their porch, napping, watching the storm and having some great dinners in downtown Wilmington... oh and a few bottles of wine and gambling games. The storm mostly came through Saturday night, and it sounded a bit rough but thankfully the only damage we saw was a bunch of down tree branches and lots of scattered leaves. News about damage on Bald Head Island was not so great though, and I think we're all pretty thankful that we didn't stay and try to tough it out.

Eeek. (photo compliments of my father)

Just hanging in Leland, NC.

Being pelted with wind and rain.

View of the woods from the porch.

Despite the strong weather we were safe on the porch for the night watching the storm from our phones.

Playing shut the box for cash.

Keith out in the yard feeling the wind blow... please note that his shirt is not even moving. What a daredevil. 

Saturday evening after the storm passed, we took a walk on the boardwalk in downtown Wilmington and admired how high the Cape Fear river was.

Group: Dad, Mom, Keith, Nick, Kathy.

Clearly I was standing on something, I promise I'm not that much taller than Keith haha

Parents.

The wind blown look. 

The worst of the hurricane damage we saw in the city.

AMAZING cheese sampling.

Wine, cheese and other yumminess at dinner Saturday night. 

My adorable mother after dinner with her adult sippy cup and cookie. 

Saying goodbye to the Levintow's and their house Sunday morning as we headed back west. 

Dad, Mom, Kathy, Nick. 

Until we meet again North Carolina.... hopefully that will not include a major storm system :) All in all we still had a great time being away from work and our daily lives. It was awesome to get to spend time with my parents and friends and to not worry about money and meals and how many naps we were allowed to take in a day. I'm so thankful that the Levintow's had a house nearby so that we didn't have to pack up and immediately head back to Tennessee on Friday but it would have been truly perfect if Irene had left us well alone, and let us have some fun in the sun. There will be other vacations, and there will be more chances to lay in the sand, so for now we just have to count this trip as another on our list of humorous adventures we can tell stories about years from now. Remember that time...