On Sunday, we packed our vehicles in the morning and started on the drive home, but stopped in Kill Devil Hills to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial. Located on the site of the Wright Brothers’ first controlled powered flight in Kill Devil Hills, the Wright Brothers Visitor Center features exhibits and presentations, as well as full-scale reproductions of the 1902 glider and the 1903 flying machine.
The Wright Brothers National Memorial from afar
Mio running along
Following the path up to the memorial
Mio looks like she could be in flight herself, hoisted on Daddy’s shoulder.
Approaching the towering memorial.
It’s an impressive sight to see!
Dan and Mio at the birthplace of aviation.
Dan is a bit of an aviation enthusiast these days with his drone hobby, so he enjoyed learning more about the Wright Brothers and visiting the memorial.
Hangin’ out with Wilbur.
Giving Wilbur some respite from the sun.
Full-sized statues re-enact the scene of the first flight.
Mio and I on a replica of the Wright Flyer
Dan joined us on the Wright Flyer
After visiting the memorial, we grabbed lunch and continued on our way home. The drive took much longer than we expected thanks to all the traffic of returning vacationers, but we made it back safely albeit exhausted and drained. Our time in Outer Banks was memorable, and it was a nice relaxing getaway with the family. We look forward to returning again someday!
Saturday was our last full day at Outer Banks, so we drove around Cape Hatteras to explore the little attractions in the area. It was a nice way to end our weeklong stay in Hatteras.
We found this abandoned UFO-shaped building on the side of the road and had to stop and take some photos. Here is our family looking like we landed from space.
Dan and Mio by the flying saucer.
There were aliens painted in the windows…
“Mio, it’s time for you to go back where you came from…”
Next stop was the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum.
There was a lot on the history of the Outer Banks in the museum, including information on the USS Monitor and other Civil War maritime casualties.
The original lighthouse lens of the Hatteras Lighthouse is on display in the museum.
Mio as a pirate. “Arghhh matey!”
Outside the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum
Some cute colorful cabins on Eagle Pass Road.
Love the colors!
Dan and Mirei at Capt’n Rolos Raw Bar and Grill, where we went for lunch.
Dan got oysters, and Mirei really wanted to dig in too!
A crabcake sandwich for moi!
After lunch, we explored some gift stores in the area, and then Dan and Mio hit the beach again one last time while Mirei and I rested at the beach house. In the evening, we drove out to see our last sunset at Outer Banks.
Waiting for the sun to set.
The sun setting on our last evening at Cape Hatteras.
On Friday during our week at Cape Hatteras, we went to visit the famous Hatteras Lighthouse, which is the tallest brick lighthouse in the country. Since we had a baby with us, we didn’t climb the lighthouse, but it was still an impressive structure to see.
Our family at the Hatteras Lighthouse.
Mio photobombing Ted & Elisa’s photo.
Standing at 210 feet tall, it’s the tallest lighthouse in the country.
Ted eating the Hatteras Lighthouse
Afterwards, we visited the old original site of the lighthouse (it was relocated to its current location some years ago), and found a little river-like area where lots of turtles were swimming.
The turtles seemed really friendly and started coming up to Mirei and I.
More and more emerged from the water until there were about twenty out of the water coming towards her.
We joked that Mirei was the long awaited turtle queen and the turtles were coming to pay homage to her. (Our family has had a running inside joke even before this vacation that Mirei resembles a turtle.)
Suddenly, the lead turtle stretched its neck out and snapped at Mirei’s sock! I screamed and had to make sure all her toes were still intact before I could calm down.
It must have mistook her sock for a worm or something!
Mirei seemed to be unfazed and oblivious to the biggest crisis of her 5 month old life.
We headed back to the house and of course squeezed in more beach time before the predicted thunderstorm came in.
Dan caught a ghost crab at the beach.
Closeup of the ghost crab.
Mio was ambivalent about the crab…
Mirei lying inside the beach tent.
Dawww…
My sister Miwa playing frisbee on the beach with my brother Ted.
The rain started coming down so we had to quickly run back to the house to take refuge from the incoming storm… we still got drenched.
Dan, Miwa, and Ted were fascinated by the ghost crabs after catching one on the beach in the afternoon, so they went on an adventure that night catching more crabs on the beach.
They caught a whole bunch of them, but in the end let them go.
Our vacation at Outer Banks got a whole lot more eventful once the other half of our family arrived late Wednesday night! The girls and I really missed Dan, and we were excited to really kick our vacation in gear once he, Ted, and Elisa arrived. My siblings and Dan really wanted to go bicycling around the area on Thursday, but I opted not to join because the bicycle rental shop didn’t have any adult tricycles available at the time. (That’s right, at age 31 I never mastered how to ride a bicycle due to my balance issues… so sad!) There was the option of going on a tandem bicycle with Dan, but I decided to stay behind and watch Mirei with my parents while Mio rode with Dan and the rest of the gang. She had so much fun with it, and I’m glad that they captured lots of photos and video for me to see afterwards.
Mio strapped in, ready to go bicycling with Daddy!
Mio looks like she’s having so much fun!
A video Dan took while bicycling:
She eventually fell asleep on the bicycle… lol.
Too funny!
Still KTFO.
…and still asleep when they got back to the rental shop.
Mio woke up just in time for lunch!
I got the buffalo shrimp wraps at the Buxton Munch Company.
Dan with his fish tacos!
This place is apparently known for their “best fish tacos”, and they did not disappointment! They were some of the best fish tacos I’ve ever had!
Sorry Mirei, you’ll have to wait a little longer before you can dig in with us…
Happy to be reunited with Daddy!
After lunch and relaxing a little bit back at the house, we went to hit the beach together!
Dan and Mio going in the water.
Dan on the boogieboard
Look at those rays of light shining through the clouds! It was a really gorgeous day.
After coming back from the beach, we sat on the patio and enjoyed the view behind the beach house as the sun was setting.
A panoramic view I took on my phone.
Mio cooling down with an ice pop. ♥
More on our last few days at Outer Banks in the coming days! 🙂
The Mosaic District in Merrifield was hosting a Mother’s Day party for mamas and their kids on Sunday, May 4, a week before actual Mother’s Day. You could sign up/apply to be invited, and they chose their invitees by lottery. Luckily, we scored an invitation so I decided to go with Mio while Dan took Mirei with him to go shopping and run errands.
Mio hanging out at the party.
We weren’t told a lot about the party except the location and that there’d be refreshments, Zumba, and a photobooth. I was most excited about the refreshments, least excited about the Zumba. haha* I guess I have this perception that Zumba is for older ladies in their 40s and 50s (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, and no offense to those who do it) plus the prospect of dancing in public on the lawn was pretty embarrassing to me! But I stepped out of my comfort zone so that Mio and I could enjoy the party together. And sure enough, Mio had a grand time dancing — a lot of the time, she was just doing her own dance moves, but there were definitely times when she was actually following the instructor’s moves!
Mio doing Zumba.
Little Zumba dancer.
Some video that I took of Mio:
This photo is from Mosaic District’s Instagram and precisely the kind of thing I was worried about — that there’d be a photo of me awkwardly dancing out on the world wide web. BUT it cracked me up to spot Mio right next to me, passionately doing her little dance moves (just in the opposite direction of everyone else). hahahaha*
After a half hour of Zumba, we were free to go hang out by the photobooth and enjoy the refreshments. Here are the photos of Mio and I from the photobooth.
They had this chalkboard up for the kids to write/draw about their mommies.
Some of the refreshments for moms and their kiddos.
Free lunch of sandwiches and wraps for everyone!
The sandwiches were delicious and worth the embarrassment I had just suffered.
Mio loved the food, too!
Dan came to join us after finishing his errands and got to enjoy some of the free food, too!
The weather was so beautiful, and it was so nice to enjoy lunch outdoors.
Thank you Mio for making me such a lucky Mama!
Can’t forget Mirei! I’m twice as lucky this year.
And of course, Daddy gets some love too.
Sunday also just happened to be the grand opening of Mosaic District’s Farmer’s Market, so we decided to check it out after the party. There were a lot of vendors with gourmet offerings!
Nicecream factory’s liquid nitrogen ice cream: they make and freeze the ice cream right there in front of your eyes!
The flavors all sounded amazing. We really enjoyed the chocolate sea salt ice cream!
Dan picked up a chocolate cherry tomato plant to add to his edible garden.
Runaway sisters! Mio kept pushing Mirei’s stroller everywhere at the market.
Afterwards, we headed over to our friend’s baby shower over in Maryland. It was a very eventful and fun-filled day!
