Photo of the Day: August 7

Here's a cute picture of us at the Outer Banks!! I think we might frame this one! :)

The Must List, The OBX Special

This week's Must List is dedicated to the Outer Banks, my favorite place to vacation!!

1. New York Pizza Pub Restaurant
My favorite place!!! Delicious pizza! Amazing strawberry smoothies! Garlic knots that make you want to die in caloric heaven!! It's the perfect mix of NYC and the beach. Half the restaurant is decorated with billboards about fish or the ocean. There's even a gigantic wall mural of the Wright Brothers flying. Then, the other half is decorated to represent New York with subway stop signs and other trinkets. You have to try this place. Make sure to ask for booth seating.

2. Driftin' Sands Motel
Hey, it's cheap and it's really clean!! It has a TV with cable, a bathroom with the most powerful shower ever invented, a comfy bed, and not so ugly carpet. And, the price was totally worth an extra, stress free day at the beach! Peace!

3. Duck Donuts
Yum, yum, yum!!! This place is amazing!! Homemade donuts never got better. Definitely try the cinnamon sugar one. Plus, a decent price for some taste bud-melting, warm and snuggly, sugary sweetness. I'm not a big donut fan, but I would happily shell out cash I don't have for more of these treats!!

4. Sunscents Candles, Body, and Bath
Buy a candle or maybe three. I bought one with a bejeweled seashell pattern on the outside. And once the candle has burned all the way, it turned into a drinking glass!!! What fun!! Kate got herself a behemoth of a candle that was sprinkled with crushed coffee beans. They also had lampshades that fit over large glass candles made of stained glass to cast beautiful shadows of colored light. The lampshades also redirected heat so that your candle burns slower and lasts longer!!

5. Kitty Hawk Kites
You can't go to Jockey Ridge without getting a kite from Kitty Hawk Kites. I bought a sleepy kitten-shaped kite from them long ago, and I still love it and try to use today! They have every imaginable type, shape, and color of kite one could possibly desire!

My kite is on the right

6. Sunset Bar and Raw Grill
The perfect place to see the sunset!!! Plus, karaoke and open mic nights with good fun and crazy drinks! Personally, I've only had a virgin strawberry daiquiri, and it was delicious! They have a large pier and a gazebo situated in the Sound for the most amazing sunset you'll ever witness.

Taken from the Sunset Bar's website

7. Outer Barks
There had to be a number 7 for this one. It's the Outer Barks store - a store catered to dogs... and a little bit to cats. Bring your dog into the store and shop with your pet until you drop! There are treats, toys for you and him, welcome mats, even something for the deceased pet in your life. For animal lovers everywhere, Outer Barks is the place to be.

Movie Minute: Sunrise at the Outer Banks

I took this in Duck, North Carolina in 2010. I purposefully woke up before 5:30 a.m. to make sure I got to see it on our last day there. In July, we're going back, and I hope the trips turns out well.

Lex's Secret Camping Trip Part 3

Our first day went well. We swam in the Atlantic, that was at a nice temperature and had a ridiculous current pulling to the left. For dinner, I took Stuart to my favorite Outer Banks restaurant The New York Pizza Pub and Italian Grill. We shared a pizza and garlic knots!! It was DELICIOUS! If you're ever in the Outer Banks, that's my recommend. Afterwards, Stuart stopped at Logan's Ice Cream Parlor for some ridiculous flavor. The parlor is famous for their "Titanic" ice cream which is six scoops of whatever flavor with four toppings! If you eat it in one sitting, you get your picture on the wall!

Roanoke Island

Back at the tent, I was exhausted beyond belief! The majority of the day was a long drive, putting up the tent under the blazing sun, struggling with the rain cover (which turned out to be a privacy canvas and wasn't used for the rain at all!), and frolicking in the waves! By the time I had returned from the communal bath house, I collapsed on my mattress pad with my head nearly sticking out the tent door for just a breath of a breeze and immediately fell asleep. I only woke a few times during the night to see flashes of lightning streak across a cloudy night sky.
Poor Stuart, on the other hand, slept little. He tossed and turned all night. The tent was so stuffy he felt like was being suffocated. The next morning, he was miserable and grumpy from lack of sleep.
On the morning of our second and final day, the sky was filled with flat gray clouds. I awoke when the blinding sun, uncovered by clouds as luck would have it, crested the dunes and flooded our tent with God's Almighty blazing light. Less than two hours later, the sun's rays were gone and were replaced with a straight downpour of heavy rain.

At first, it was sweet. Stuart and I huddled together eating raw blueberry bagels and a plastic tub of pre-cut watermelon slices from Food Lion. Then, the tent started leaking!! At first it was just a small drip from the roof. Then, it was second drip. Then, it was a large puddle coming from the side seam near my suitcase. And then, it was Stuart, myself, and all of our belongings piled on top of the narrow mattress pads with the sheets draped across our laps to keep from getting wet!! If the rain had been much harder, our tent floor would have been a shallow lake or a deep puddle.
When a break in the clouds arrived, Stuart made a break for it in his yellow slicker and scurried about the car tossing our stuff in the trunk. He jumped back into the tent before the next onslaught of rain leaving my car door wide open........!!!!!

Lex's Secret Camping Trip Part 1

I think it's a big thing to make it to 9 months in a relationship. That seems like a ridiculous long bit of time to stay with one person at the young adult stage of life. And, Morgan and I have been through it, man! Long distance for 4 months, family issues, financial trials, past experiences, and the personal journey of being together with someone of dealing with the good, the bad, and the impatient frustrations of little crap. Tell you what, I'd have thrown in the towel a long time ago if it were with anyone but Morgan. And, that's how I know I love him and he's right for me. Because based on past experiences, I have thrown in the towel with people and didn't give them second chances. Morgan doesn't make me want to do that. Instead, I want to work out the problems and have a better relationship.

So, I wanted to do something really special that both of us would readily enjoy for our anniversary on July 7th. My favorite place in the whole world is the small chain of islands off the coast of North Carolina known as the Outer Banks. I have the happiest and best memories there. My favorite restaurants are down there, and I am a deep lover of the beach! I wanted to add to my memories a trip with my boyfriend on our anniversary at my favorite place; I wanted to show him around the place that made me so happy.
At first, I searched for hotels for a one night stay. Well, beach real estate, even hotel real estate, is not cheap! Currently jobless as I am, I decided to take the brave route and planned for a night's stay at the Ocean Waves Campground in Waves, North Carolina.

With Morgan clueless as the entire trip was a surprise, I packed my mother's two-person tent in the back of Little Honda along with a vast array of beach supplies, including the family's magic Barney bag of beach toys. I gathered beach chairs, a colorful umbrella, and sand stakes from Morgan's mother and made a reservation at the campground. Thankfully, Morgan has and enjoys camping as that's what he grew up with. I knew that, as I've never camped anyone except five feet from my house in the backyard, Morgan would be able to handle any situations that arose during our camping trip.
When visiting Ma and gathering the tent, I allowed Morgan a detail of my secret trip: "Baby, we're going camping."
He was like a little boy again, perfectly elated!

Barney's magic bag of beach stuff

Camping in the Rain Part 2

Here is part two of the camping in the rain. The leaks begin to get worse and life as we know is about to get wet!!

Photo of the Day July 9

This was right after we finished putting up the tent. Both of us were exhausted and disgustingly hot! It was at least 80 degrees with very little wind as any air from the beach was blocked by high dunes. We practically ran to the bath house then to the beach right after this picture!!!

Camping in the Rain Part 1

This evening, Morgan and I returned from our camping trip in the Outer Banks, the chain of islands off the coast of North Carolina. They make up my favorite place in the world! I love the touristy essence of Nags Head, the history of Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills, the spookiness of Hatteras, the wilderness of Waves and Rodanthe, and the classiness of Duck!
It was an amazing, unbelievable trip! Morgan and I, celebrating our 9-month anniversary, enjoyed a relaxing though at times exciting trip. We spent the night in a two-person tent on the coast of Waves inside the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
The weather was nice...ish! Thankfully, it didn't thunderstorm all night like it was supposed to. But the next morning, we did see some rain. Here's part one of what happened: