We went to Indian Beach North Carolina again....

Sunday June 10, we packed up a rental car and headed out on our family Summer vacation. This year, we decided to head back to my favorite place in the world-- Indian Beach, North Carolina. (We have vacationed here as a family in 2014 and 2016. I have vacationed in that area several times growing up with my family and for the first time with Bill in 2006.) We left our house around 12:30 AM on Sunday morning. We figured we would leave so that the kids would sleep in the car for the most part. And they did for some of the trip. Unfortunately, Rebecca got sick with car sickness a couple hours into the trip as is her norm. 

We stopped for a breakfast of donuts and strawberries and chocolate milk that I had packed in a cooler once we reached North Carolina. This has become our tradition. 

After stopping, we got back on the road. Unfortunately, Jacob later got sick with what we thought at first was car sickness, but we later figured out was a stomach bug. He threw up five times on the way down so that made the trip down interesting to say the least.

What also made our trip down interesting was the fact that on our vacations we have an understanding that Bill will drive to the destinations and home, and I will usually drive the entire time we are there. Unfortunately, Bill was getting too tired during several times in the trip down, so I ended up driving 75% of the time. If you know me, you know that I HATE driving on the freeway and that I get severe anxiety when I do so. But, I also didn't want to stop anywhere so Bill could sleep so I did what I had to do. Honestly we got pretty lucky with not really encountering slow or a ton of traffic on the way down. (Although I did not relish driving in the mountains in Virginia where there was a ton of morning fog!) We arrived on the island that where Indian Beach is right around 12:30PM.

Check is was not until 3PM. So we headed over to the Emerald Plantation to walk around and have lunch. They have turtles that live in one of the rivers in the back and you can feed them. Well, you can feed them and the sea gulls and pigeons that like to steal the turtle food. LOL.  So we did that and threw pennies in the fountain for luck. 

Then we had lunch at RuckerJohn's. I had a yummy chicken salad and croissants that are so good! The kids all felt better once we were walking around and they had their lunches. 

After lunch, we walked around some of the shops for a little bit. Then we headed over to Food Lion to get some groceries to last us the first couple of days. We still had about half an hour before we could check in, so we drove around for a bit before heading to our rental agency. We got in line to get our keys as there were tons of people waiting. We got our key packet and set off to the condo. 

Once again we stayed in Summer Winds condos and rented through Bluewater Real Estate. This is our third time staying in one (each one was different). We love that they have pools (both outdoor and indoor) and a café and private entrances to the beach.

This particular condo was a 3 bedroom- 2 bath condo with a kitchen and balcony that overlooked one of the pools and the ocean. It was perfect for our family. 

Once at the condo, we unloaded the car and then did what most people do...we headed down to the beach! It felt so good to be back!  

After playing on the beach for a bit, we headed back in and made frozen pizzas for dinner and we all went to bed exhausted from the drive but excited to see what fun the week would bring.