The 4th in NC

(I do realize that with the amount of pictures of the Erickson boys on this blog, you might come to think that they are my own, but here it goes one last time.)   

I made the trip to North Carolina to see Erin's new beautiful home and surrounding area.  The bottom line is that she pretty much lives in an awesome place that is heads and shoulders above the Mojave Desert (apologies for anyone that loves it there).   Their house is gorgeous and has a huge yard and they are minutes from the beach and all of the activities that come with living on the Outer Banks.

While there:

I watched Andy work for 3 days straight to build the boys a new playset:

We went to the beach (twice) and Owen ate probably a quarter pound of sand:

We bought shrimp pretty much right off the shrimp boats.  It was a very Forrest Gump moment because all I could think about was Bubba listing off shrimp gumbo, BBQ shrimp, shrimp scampi . . .

We went go cart racing and Tyler informed me that I "ate his dust":

We went to the aquarium:


And due to a my flight being cancelled,  we got to enjoy some fourth of July fireworks together topped off by Tyler's special firecracker:

Looking back, we fit quite a bit in for three days.  Some of the best times were spent eating breakfast together, playing out in the backyard, and having some quality time to talk on the car rides to and from the airport. I really do hate not knowing when I will see the Ericksons again, but I know that the days in between are going to be filled with lots of adventures as they explore their incredible new home. Thanks for all of your hospitality and generosity while I was visiting especially since I invited myself over only days after you guys moved.  I loved getting to see a piece of your new life.

If you are wondering where Chris is, he had a separate trip planned with his dad that got cancelled due to late snow melt so he spent the weekend up at my favorite place on earth.  Pictures and post soon to come on that - assuming that he really took some pictures per my request :)