The Great Escape!

To celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary (back on July 9th), Mark and I took a little weekend getaway to Ocracoke Island. Last summer, when I was still pregnant, I had reserved the help of my parents to take care of Elijah so we could go. This was the 1st time we have been anywhere without him overnight, so we were pretty excited to have some fun just the two of us.

Mark found us a wonderful bed and breakfast on the island. Our suite was on the 3rd floor of this really cool house, with views of the Ocracoke lighthouse and the water/sunset. The only way to get onto the island was by ferry or private plane, so we took an almost 3 hour ferry ride (we kept singing the Gilligan's Island theme song)on the way there. This was definitely the longest ferry ride either of us had ever been on, but it gave us some time to nap and just take it easy before all the fun began!








The view of us approaching Ocracoke's little harbor was aweseome!





On Friday evening, we explored Ocracoke Village and went out to eat after watching a gorgeous sunset from our room's private balcony. Neither of us had ever been to the island, so it was fun to see everyone riding around town on their bikes or in their golf carts. Oh, and we had absolutely NO phone service the whole time we were there, which was kind of strange. Thankfully, we had just enough internet to call my parents for the nightly check-in via Skype. I love Skype.







After breakfast on Saturday morning, we decided to walk over to the Ocracoke Lighthouse for a quick visit. It is a really small lighthouse that is basically just there for the public to take pictures of. After that, we went on a mini-hike through the Springer's Point Nature Preserve, which was right down the road from our B&B. It was SO hot, but we did get to see Blackbeard's (yes, the pirate) favorite beach party spot, Teach's Hole.

(We'd see these sweet baby ducks with their mommy every morning outside our B&B)







Then, we went back to our B&B to borrow some of their bikes to cruise around the little town. We visited the tiny Ocracoke Preservation Museum and an exhibit on Blackbeard the Pirate. (the second place was all per Mark's request)





After sweating our brains out hiking and biking for the first half of the day, we spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at the beach. We decided to visit a more remote beach across from where they keep some native Ocracoke ponies. The horses aren't really "wild" anymore, but they sure were beautiful animals! The waves were ridiculously huge that afternoon, but the water felt so good!








That evening we went out for a nice seafood dinner and picked-up some yummy desserts on our way back to the B&B. It was so nice to just have some time to be alone together.

We checked-out of our room after breakfast the next morning and headed back home via the Hatteras Island ferry. Neither of us had seen the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse since they had moved it back in 1999, so we made a quick pit-stop to climb to the top. The view from the deck of the lighthouse truly was amazing! Afterward, we quickly toured the lighthouse museum and then headed on our way back home to Eli.






He had a great weekend with his grandparents and we were so excited to see his sweet little smiling face when we got back. I've never seen him crawl to us so fast as he did when we came through the door! We were so thankful for this opportunity to celebrate the past 5 years of marriage with such a memorable trip. Now, we just have to decide where we want to go for our 10 year anniversary...Hawaii, maybe??? We had better start saving now!