The first day of our Outer Banks family vacation was mostly just getting to our destination in Corolla, NC. We rented a beach house through Seaside Vacations for Going Mom, Avery, G-Ma, Grandma, Uncle Preston, Aunt Tammy, Uncle Paul, and their boys/my cousins Aaron, Noah, and Nick.

Besides Kelley (aka Going Mom), Avery, my mom (G-Ma), Uncle Preston, and myself, the rest of the family were driving down from their home state of Pennsylvania. For us, we first had a plane trip to Richmond, Virginia.

From Richmond, we rented a car to drive four hours to our destination.

Then we could officially start our vacation. Unless you count waking up at around 4 am with a toddler as vacation.

Surprisingly, Avery handled getting up and out the door much better than expected. If I had placed a bet on it, I would’ve been out money. One of our friends, Mr. Penta, was so kind as to agree to drop us off and keep our car at his house so we didn’t have to pay for parking. How awesome is that? I’m scared of when we will have to pay him back by driving him to the airport a 5 in the morning on a weekend. Geesh!

Getting to the airport proved issue-free, then we just had to find coffee (easy to do at DFW), and entertain this little girl.

Mommy and Daddy put Uncle P to work for as long as possible.

That did the trick for a bit. Of course, my little brother spent the entire night staying up partying with friends and had zero sleep, so his effectiveness only lasted so long. Luckily, boarding time arrived quickly. The bad part of this was that I downed a hefty dose of caffeine and needed to pee a lot. Happens every time, I never learn.

Going Mom and G-Ma sat with Avery in the middle and Uncle P and I sat on the same row but different sides with other people. We were right behind the girls though, which made for great entertainment watching them keep Avery busy. G-Ma always seems to put a smile on her face.

A photo posted by RC Liley (@going_dad) on Jun 11, 2016 at 8:16am PDT

Again, Avery surprised us with how well she behaved on the flight. We expected her to sleep a little, but that never happened. Maybe that’s what she was trying to do as we waited for our car rental.

Whatever she was going for, it never worked out as our rental car van was prepped and ready to go. If I had a preference in vans, I would’ve gone with the Honda Odyssey only because I’ve heard so many great things, but rocking the Chrysler Town & Country turned out to be pretty cool. Cool in the sense of vans, that is.

We found a Whole Foods Market and a Costco right next to each other in Newport News off the highway and planned to make a stop there.  As a family that avoids all fast food and eating out in general, finding a Whole Foods was essential as a place to grab wholesome food to fuel our journey. Having a group of hungry people riding in a van together is less than ideal, and thanks to Whole Foods, we avoided any hangry outbursts.

After getting a bite to eat, we bought a few groceries at Whole Foods and drove across the street to Costco for more food to bring to our rental house. And Uncle P was so amazed with the prices of Bud Light that he bought a case. Most was for him and Cousin Aaron to have while hanging out, but he made sure to enjoy a few beverages in the backseat as we made the trip.

No sleep and a few beers made for quality commentary from my brother. With every sight of water, bay, ocean, pond, or just a puddle, he’d say “That’s a good fishin’ hole right there.” and then laughed. Eventually, we were all saying it and laughing along. Why? No clue, but I’m sure lack of sleep played a role.

Avery gave in to a couple of very short naps as we drove, but the excitement of seeing construction trucks and spotting Jeeps just made it too hard to sleep I guess. With several beers down the hatch, Preston turned his third row seating into a bed the best he could for probably just around thirty minutes. He got a little more sleeping time since my navigator/wife never entered the exact address of our rental house and we ended up driving 5 miles past the place.

I gave her a hard time, but tried to back off once I realized I was pushing her patience too much. Note to all husbands, little sleep and food is not the time to give your spouse a hard time. Why do I feel like I’ve made note of this many times before?

Either way, arriving at our final vacation destination helped improve everyone’s mood. We quickly unpacked as we were greeted by the rest of our family who had arrived just a couple hours earlier. Before it turned dark, we walked the half mile distance down to the beach for Avery’s first official ocean sighting.

She was amazed at the vast body of water and quickly fell in love. The waves were calm, the water pretty cool, but getting our feet in was a must. G-Ma took first dibs at getting her feet wet with Avery.

Going Mom is the camera expert in the family, so she took most of the pics, obviously. As she started shooting, I took my turn with Avery’s first ocean experience.

Kelley then took over playing with our precious daughter (who still had very little sleep!) and reveled at the site of the moon.

With the camera back in her control, my wife took a picture of the rest of us before we all returned back to the beach house.

Aunt Tammy happens to be quite the photographer as well, and she caught an excellent shot of our little family on the beach.

Tired, hungry, and in need of a shower, we quickly checked off each to-do before heading to our rooms for the night. Our sleeping quarters during the week long stay was the size of a dorm room with a bunk bed. The plan was daddy on top with mommy and Avery on bottom.

Things don’t always go as planned though.

That’s it for day one. Stay tuned for our first full day of beach fun in the Outer Banks!