Our Last Summer Road Trip: DC, Virginia, and Sunset Beach NC

What is the perfect way to end a very busy summer? Take a busy road trip, full of sights and sounds, cities and beaches!! Our lovely friends the Dawes invited us to spend a week at their beach house in Sunset Beach, North Carolina.  We couldn't resist seeing the Atlantic coastline!  It was a 13 hour drive that we split in half by stopping at Washington DC along the way.  This was by far the longest car ride we have experienced with the boys.  Typically we prefer to go 4 hours to our destination, but on this road trip, we drove a straight 7 hours (with a minor potty break) from Bemus Point, NY to Washington DC, arriving on a Saturday evening.  Thanks to Brad's new Range Rover (yes, he upgraded again, and we have one that has the TV screens built into the seats), the boys were wonderfully distracted by the Cars and Dora movies!  In DC, we stayed at the FAB Loews Madison hotel, where we ordered room service for dinner and had a slumber party.  The next morning, we went for a walk around town, had a yummy breakfast, and did a little sightseeing.  We knew the boys were too little for all that the city has to offer (and all the history), but since we were there, Brad and I wanted to peek at the monuments! We know we'll bring the boys back here when they are older and studying government in school.

The White House

Our 2 little boys at the BIG white house!...... so funny, the way I had always envisioned it, 

I expected it to be MUCH bigger :)

Lincoln Memorial..... did not disappoint!!! We loved it!

Washington Monument

The Capitol Building, from a distance

A little video of "Beavis and Butthead":

Family Pic at the National Mall

We spent a total of 17 hours in DC, and we loved the city!  Can't wait to come back and really tour it in depth!  On a side note, it was very cool to be in DC the weekend before Labor Day bc it was the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I had a dream" speech and march.  We fortunately missed the chaos and march hours before we arrived, but still saw the aftermath of the festivities.

At around 1pm on Sunday, we said our goodbyes to Mr. Obama, and continued onward to our next 6 hours of driving to Sunset Beach, North Carolina.  We drove through the state of Virginia, and finally arrived here:

Sunset Beach, NC..... on the little island of Ocean Isle...... 30 minutes north of Myrtle Beach, SC.  It is considered to be somewhat on the outer banks of the Atlantic Ocean, and it was our first time on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean (minus the Florida beaches).

This was the Dawes' annual beach house they come back to year after year.... a family tradition of Amanda's since she was in high school.  It was so nice of them to have us as guests! The boys got their own room, and so did we!

We rented bikes, with baby seats on back.  We either walked this wooden walkway, or road our bikes, to the beach every day.

Jax chillaxin to the maximum at the beach.

Amanda and I.

The four of us!  Brad and Josh grew up together in Bemus Point, and now we live a few blocks from each other.

The boys and I posed on a rock pile that separated the Carolinas.... We sat right on the border of North and South Carolina.

The Kindred Spirit mailbox...... a kind of a monument on the beach.  It was put there mysteriously by someone and the custom is that you sign the journal that is inside the mailbox (kind of like a visitor guestbook) This is also the place where Josh proposed to Amanda 11 years ago.

A little beach play..... the boys LOVE the beach.  They are our adorable sand crabs!

This was a cool new experience for us:  bike riding on the beach!  The sand gets so packed and hard that you can actually ride the beach shore.  We rode through the water, splashing the boys.

The Sunset Beach pier

More sand play with Harper, Eliza, and Beck

Jax eating gelato

The Marsh.  Right in front of the beach house, and where the sun would set.  Brad and Greg (another friend who was staying at the Dawes beach house) went paddle boarding in the marsh and caught blue crabs!  They were such a pretty color blue too!  And did you know, that once you boil them, they change to the standard color red/orange? We made crab dip with them, and Taj thought they were delicious!

The boys also saw real live baby sea turtles hatching in the sand, and running for their life into the ocean water:

The turtles making their escape into the ocean:

Jax made a new friend (or fan, should I say).  This was Aunt Sheila.  She was enamored by Jax and all his cuteness.  I have never met a lady that could sit there and lovingly watch and smile at a little toddler eating and coloring for 30 minutes, AND converse & follow him around so patiently!  She was SO sweet with her southern accent and Jax naturally gravitated to her!

We loved spending time at the beach in North Carolina, and I was mostly smitten and impressed with Amanda's annual family beach tradition.  I loved the idea of the family gathering every year, at the same beach house, and spending all that quality time together.  It is an amazing thing for their kids, and it inspired me to think of our traditions we want to have with our boys.  Since our families are so dispersed (and strained and non-existent on Brad's side), I have brainstormed a couple ideas of our annual trips with the boys.  I definitely think kids have ties and connections to consistent places; they remember the most out of the yearly vacations taken in the same place, same house, etc.  Its a familiarity thing and it creates attachments with the memories and experiences as they grow.  Both Brad and I are hard-core travelers so we enjoy traveling to different destinations every year, however, i think, for example.... making California our annual Winter vacation (2-4 weeks at time) at the same beach cottage rental will be an awesome tradition for the boys.  They will automatically have a connection to California because of my family, our friends, our friends' kids that are the same age as the boys..... and of course, who wouldn't be fond of growing up remembering part of their winters spent on the breathtaking beaches of Laguna Beach?!  Just some food for thought........

Getting back to our End of Summer Road Trip....
After spending 5 days at the beach.... frolicking in the sand, swimming and jumping over waves, bike riding, catching crabs and watching turtles, making and having family dinners with friends, playing games and relaxing, as well as getting bitten by horse flies and annoying little gnats on our last beach day..... we were ready to say goodbye to the salt and sunshine and head home!

On our way, this time we decided to stop at highly recommended Alexandria, Virginia (just 5 miles south of DC.)  We again arrived in the evening (midnight!) and stayed at the Westin, got up the next morning and had a champagne brunch at this place:

We walked and took in the sights of the most charming red brick historic city EVER.  It was so beautiful. and the weather was amazing!  This will definitely be the place we stay in when we visit DC again!  So many great restaurants and shops!

After a couple hours of walking, and stopping at the candy store, we threw our overnight bags into the car and continued the next leg (6 hours) of our trip back to Bemus.  The boys are definitely road trip professionals after this summer of road tripping.  If there is anything I learned at all, its that, if a road trip is more than 7 1/2 hours long, its best to fly!!  Seriously!  Why spend 2 days driving, when you can hop on a plane and be where you want to be in a quarter of that time?  Next time we plan a trip somewhere to the South, we WILL take a plane to Atlanta or Charleston, and rent a car!