Days 569-575! Sorry for the delay on the blog post, just wanted to enjoy my time with family and not stress about posting on time. But let me tell you, you’re in for a treat! This was such a wholesome week. It was filled with lots of love, laughter, wave splashing, sand castles, and even a handful of surf mornings! Sit back, relax, and enjoy a fun family trip to Wrightsville Beach to celebrate my sister Sophie’s birthday!

We woke up on Thursday, July 24th with a long drive ahead of us. The day had finally arrived for our road trip to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.

This road trip is a very special one. From pretty much birth onwards, every summer my family would drive out to Wrightsville for a week at my grandparents beach cottage. It’s a huge part of my upbringing and pretty much the main reason why I am a beach bum through and through today.

That’s not the only reason this trip is special. We’re also celebrating my siblings 30th birthday! And three years prior to this trip we did the same for my other sibling!

We picked up our rental car, played packing Tetris to fit all of our items in the car, and then set off on our journey.

We took turns driving, switching off every hour. We jammed out to music, listened to podcasts, and chatted throughout the drive. We drove through Indiana, Ohio, and stopped for the night in Beckley, West Virginia. It was a full day of driving!

We ate the hotel breakfast on Friday, July 25th and then set back out on the road!

We made our way through West Virginia, Virginia, and then made a longer stop at Pilot Mountain State Park! It’s a good thing the three of us enjoy each other’s company (quite a lot) because this was a ton of driving!

I haven’t visited Pilot Mountain in MANY years. I definitely look forward to hiking around the park someday, but it was extremely hot out. So thankfully, you could drive to a viewing point to have a beautiful view of the mountain’s summit and the fields below!

It was a beautiful pit stop and I even found out my wingspan is just shy of a bald eagle! Now, to show you just how long it’s been since my last visit to Pilot Mountain…

Take a good look at my height difference to the fence post between the above picture and the ones above that… it’s been awhile!

We continued in with our drive and made our way to Chapel Hill, home to the University of North Carolina (UNC Tar Heels). Not only were they home to Michael Jordan and the ‘83 basketball national champions… but they also were home to the ‘82 and ‘83 College Bowl national champions, which my dad was a part of! So I can say my dad was a national champion the same year as Michael Jordan (technically more so than Michael Jordan).

We stopped at the “downtown” for lunch at one of my dad’s college stomping grounds, Four Corners.

After lunch we took a little stroll through a quad on campus. There was too much of the wrong shade of blue around this campus… but it was really nice seeing where my dad went to college and hear him reminisce on old college stories that I had never heard before!

We went to the Raleigh-Durham Airport to swap rental cars, repacked the car, and then drove the final couple hours to Wrightsville Beach. And before we knew it, we had arrived!!

We unloaded and then went out for dinner to a nearby Thai restaurant. I introduced my parents to the traditional Thai dish Larb (or Laab depending on the restaurant) and we had a delicious Pad Thai as well. We then loaded up on groceries for the week and headed back to our beach house to relax and wait for my siblings to arrive.

We went on a little beach walk and looked at the stars. My siblings finally arrived and we went back out to the beach for a bit before calling it a night.

It was the start of a fantastic week to come!

I woke up Saturday, July 26th to a beautiful sunny morning and had a crisp bowl of Reese’s Puffs to start my day.

My parents and I were the only ones up, so we took a walk down the beach. The beach house we were staying at was a quick 15 minute walk to the beach house we used to go to, which is still there! It’s been renovated a lot, but it still looks like I remember… just the doors probably close properly now (the old house was knocked over by one hurricane and put back up both and then hit by another one a bit later).

This was the warmest weather I had ever experienced at Wrightsville Beach. We used to always come in June and it was significantly colder. Not only was the weather warm, the water was too! We took a dip after our walk and when we came back the Manley’s (the rest of our crew) had arrived!

We spent the rest of the day at the beach, eating, and playing games at the house. At the beach we did lots of body surfing in the small waves and plenty of digging in the sand with the kids.

Later in the day, I went on a walk to a nearby surf shop and inquired about a board rental. The price was pretty steep ($150 for 4 days?!) but I wanted to surf so I decided to rent it to pick up the following evening.

We also surprised my sister, Sophie, with trip teeshirts.

Sunday, July 27th we were back up and at it and heading straight to the beach. It was another GORGEOUS day with the sun blasting down on us. The water was again insanely warm… like Thailand ocean warm (that feeling you’re sitting in a warm wavy bathtub)… which is an odd feeling for Wrightsville Beach in my experience.

Because of this warm water experience, and the fairly flat ocean, even my mother, who’s not an ocean person, got in the water!

With the waves that were there, my dad and I body surfed the waves, made a ball track in the sand, and enjoyed a fabulous day out on the beach with family.

A big thunderstorm rolled in, so the rest of the day we spent playing games, reading books, and working on a puzzle (another beach tradition). We had our big family dinner, of Alfredo, pesto, and marinara with noodles, on the porch and enjoyed our homemade birthday cake inside, followed by more game playing!

I quickly hopped out of the house between rain showers and bopped over to the surf shop to pick up my surfboard for the week. I was hopeful I’d be able to catch some waves… but with how flat the water had been the past couple days, I wasn’t super optimistic. I was excited nonetheless to go out for a paddle and be on a surfboard again!

We finished the night with even more game playing and then I went to bed with hopes of waking up early for a good surf session!

My alarm went off at 7am on Monday, July 28th. I hopped out of bed and jumped into my swimsuit and rash guard (it was probably a bit more lethargic than that, but I’d like to think I was up and moving right away).

I got out before most of the beach goers! There were a few other surfers out spread out up and down the entire beach. And I spent the next hour or so paddling around trying to find waves. I ended up catching two small waves… but this was before my parents came out to watch, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

But my mom did snag a couple pictures of me paddling around! I was very happy to finally have surfing pictures after all this time.

Most of the waves I was up against in Australia were much bigger and more powerful, but it was still fun to be out on the ocean. I was contemplating if I spent far too much money for what I was going to get out of the surfboard though.

The rest of the crew joined us for beach time and we got into sandcastle building and more body surfing! And AGAIN, my mother got into the water with us, which was a real treat.

One of the kiddos got a boogie board and I played Uncle Elie and sent them flying along the waves with it. It was a blast seeing the joy they got from it and being able to play the role of fun uncle. Also passing on my love for the ocean and beach is always a joy.

We of course got up to more card playing, book reading, food eating… and more game playing as the day went on.

On Tuesday, July 29th, I decided to get up at 8am instead of 7am… if the waves didn’t want to cooperate, I wasn’t going to compromise my beauty sleep. I was still hopeful, so I went out for a surf session before everyone got up.

I’m glad I went, because this surf session was great! The waves were small, but they packed a punch today, which meant I was catching wave after wave. They were short rides, but they were still fun!

I ended up surfing for 2 hours!! The waves were so shallow I didn’t have to paddle as much, so I had a bunch of energy to catch a bunch of tiny rides. I did have to maneuver around multiple families that decided to come out and swim directly next to me while I was surfing… that was a bit frustrating! But the beach is meant to be shared. After I wrapped up, I assisted some boogie boarding again.

I then took my surfboard back up to the house, had breakfast, and then went on a nice long beach walk with my parents.

We walked a bit closer to the old beach cottage again and continued even further down the beach than we did the last walk. I was hot and sweaty after the walk, so a plunge in the ocean was necessary! We sat on the beach for a while and then headed back in for lunch.

We headed back out after lunch, but unfortunately rain rolled in and then the lifeguards gave the call to head back inside due to lightning.

We played Rumikube, had dinner, played more games, and then went on an evening walk to a local custard spot that we used to go to every year!

We then went on a very familiar walk to see the old beach cottage on the street side.

We played some more games once we got back home and then called it a night!

Wednesday, July 30th was here, it’s not the end of our beach vacation quite yet, but it’s the end of this week’s blog post!

I woke up at 8am again and went out for another surf session. Today was nowhere as good as the day before, but I was glad to be out surfing every day!

I think the picture on the left is so adorable, hopefully a future surfer someday!

Speaking of adorable pictures, here’s two of me surfing for the very first time in just about this exact spot on Wrightsville Beach many many years ago.

Wednesday was a rainy day, but as long as there wasn’t lightning, that didn’t bother us. So we played bocce, dug in the sand, and swam in the rain.

The lightning eventually took us inside again, which called for lunchtime, puzzle time, and more relaxing time.

We went on a sunset walk on the beach after the rain cleared. Not only was it a gorgeous evening, but we were joined by a raucous pod of dolphins who wanted to put on a show for us!

We walked towards our grandparents old cottage again and they followed us along the entire way. They were splashing around, catching waves, flipping their tails in and out of the water, they caught the attention of the entire beach as we walked.

This wasn’t the first dolphin siting of the trip either! I saw some just about each day I was surfing, one of the days I even saw one fully jump out of the water! It was pretty magical!

We played some more games when we got home and then called it a night!

What a heck of a week it was! It was pretty amazing getting to hang out on the beach we used to spend so much time on and spend that time with family! Words can’t really express how happy this trip made me but I hope you can see all the fun and joy from the pictures!

There’s still one more day of our beach vacation before we wrap up this part of the trip. But that will have to wait until next week’s blog post!

Next week will also include another fun trip before I head out on my next big adventure!

See you then!!

– Elie