OBX Day 3: Are you Sure It's July?

Wow, I am totally on a blogging roll....actually I'm just avoiding doing moving stuff ::gulp:: Ok, so now it's Monday. On the refrigerator had been posted a listed of scheduled activities. All activities were optional except of course for my gramma's birthday dinner. On the schedule for Monday was sand castle building contest, and pork barbecue for dinner. Again I got up early, but this time so did my mom and dad. We were the first ones down to the beach. It was very cold and windy, and after about fifteen minutes decided that we were too cold and should make this our shopping trip instead. It was kinda ironic that it was cold because my dad and I had gotten yelled at on Saturday by my mom for not packing a sweatshirt. We drove up to Duck. When I was little I thought that Duck was REALLY far away, but actually it's not. I bought a new lunch bag.

What is is about purple purse like lunch bags that I love? oh maybe that they're purple and look like a purse! We did some shopping. Then we decided to go letterboxing. We found a clue that had 5 boxes along the same trail. The hike was listed as 5 miles, but upon inspection we discovered that it was actually a 2.5 mile trail, so round trip was 5 miles. However, the clue included instructions on how to begin at the opposite end of the trail, so we gave those instructions to my dad and sent him to meet us at the other end. The first issue we came across was that the trail was extremely flooded and wet because there had been a huge storm the night before.

At the 1 mile marker, my cell phone rang. It was my dad.

Dad: Are you going North or South?

Me: North

Dad: Are you sure?

Me: yep...the water is on our left the road is on our right.

Dad: Ok.

We continue on. At the 1.5 mile marker my cell phone rang again.

Dad: What was the name of the road?

Me: {name of the road...I can't remember what it was}

Dad: and it's on the left?

Me: Yes

Dad: there are no roads on the left.

Me: Well that's what the clue says...I'll just call you when we get to the end if you aren't there.

Dad: I hope you have cell service (at this point both of us are getting increasingly angry with each other)

Me: What do you want us to do? Do you want us to turn around? We're only a mile away from the end.

Dad: No just keep going.

I'm a little worried at this point that there actually is no end to the trail and we misunderstood the clue or something. But just before 2.5, I hear "cahcaw, cahcaw" a very poor excuse for a bird call which would be my dad. Also while we were on the trail, my Uncle Bill called and told us that the sand castle contest had been postponed because of wind and cold.

We head back to the house and Patrick and I watch Cash Cab in my room because the kids are watching some mindless junk on the living room TV. For some reason, Cash Cab became the show that everyone watched EVERY DAY. Patrick named my pink hippo pillow Eugene (I wanted to make in Pippo...Pink + Hippo), and decided he should have a very homosexual accent. Patrick and his family then left to go see the Lost Colony. (I got an update from him later...still lost).

After supper (the pork barbecue that my mom had transported from Indiana...I don't know why), Sierra, Aubrey and I snuck down one by one to the hot tub. It was necessary to sneak around so that all the other kids didn't join in. (Though at one point we did have eleven people in the hot tub). Then we searched out a TV to watch the movie Clue on. The only TV's that had VCRs were in the adult rooms. We went to Heidi and Bryan's room because Heidi was busy putting the finishing touches on my gramma's birthday cake (which you will see tomorrow). We had myself and five kids crammed onto a queen size bed watching the movie. It was fine except for someone's foot occasionally falling asleep and having to move.