vacation download

So vacation was fantastic.  :-) I had ten days off from work for the first time in over a decade, and it was glorious.  Friday and Saturday of the first weekend were spent with BF and his daughter.  We went and saw Ghostbusters in the theater, which was super fun, as that's one of my all time favorites.  BF's daughter left that Saturday evening, and we mostly spent the time getting everything situated for our morning departure.

The drive to OBX was not bad.  I'd never been through so much of Virginia, and I'd never been to North Carolina at all, so it was an interesting drive at times.  The actual beach trip was fantastic.  We grilled.  We mini golfed (twice).  We did the paddleboats, dined out at local restaurants, spent time at the beach and in the ocean every single day.  Lounged on the varying decks of the beach house, reading, talking, relaxing.  We utilized the hot tub, mostly late at night once it had cooled off enough to be bearable.  I ate way too much fudge and way too many donuts from this amazing donut place that makes fresh, hot donuts made to order.  We went to all the little shops, and I found unique jewelry (2 rings, one pair of earrings) and my Christmas ornament for this year.  I got a touristy OBX hat for the beach to protect my pale scalp.  And because we are who we are, we watched football.  ;-)

It was a gorgeous place to spend a week.  I managed to avoid getting sunburnt thanks to my diligent use of sunscreen, I got good sleep, I roasted s'mores and we laughed and talked and kissed and were closer and it all felt amazing.  I didn't check work email once!

I was so sad to leave a week later.  I felt like I was letting go of this glorious little moment in time where I was unencumbered by work, bills, chores, obligations.  It was just all my time to do with as I pleased.  The day we left was gray and drizzly.  We'd had a gorgeous week of weather, so it felt like we were leaving at just the right time.  We left early on that Sunday morning so we could get back in time to watch NFL football.  Sidenote:  Both of our teams lost!

I stayed at BF's house until Monday evening.  Monday was mostly lazy.  I slept in until 10 and then we had leftover pizza for lunch, and ran a couple of errands.  Lazy afternoon, and once rush hour traffic was wrapped I headed home for the first time in what felt like forever.

Took me ages to unpack the car of my things.  I spent the evening unpacking my bags, doing a tiny bit of cleaning in my apartment and zoning out to some DVR.

Tuesday brought me crashing back to reality, and when my alarm went off I was right back in the grind of things.  It was a hectic day catching up on things, going through all the emails and fixing what was missed in my absence.  It was totally worth the chaos, though!

Including a few pictures.  :-)

View one evening at sunset in Duck, the town we stayed in

Porch swing moon gazing

DUCK DONUTS!!

Jockey's Ridge State Park---a desert in the middle of the OBX!

Beach.  :-)