Surprise is the  photo challenge theme this week at I Heart Faces. I wish I had a photo of myself when I found out I was to be a Brand Ambassador for Carnival! Now that would have been a perfect surprise photo:-)

We got home from our cruise late last night and I’m still swaying like we’re on the ship. Eek! When does it stop?? It’s making me soooo sleepy. I can’t wait to get LOTS of coffee in me and  have a moment to look through my 1,600 photos (yes, that’s a ton!) and write about my trip. For now, here is a glimpse into our vacation. Talk about surprise!!! My husband had no idea he was going to be kissed by a dolphin in Jamaica… or be on my blog today:-)

Surprise!!!

{I didn’t get to swim with the dolphins because I wanted to take photos. Luckily I had my 15x zoom Tamron lens with me!}

I was also surprised to returned home to find out we won the Social Luxe Blog Award for Best Eye Candy last week in NYC!! WOW!

Angie was able to attend the party and accept our award. I’m so thrilled to be in the company of so many wonderful blogs and the fact that we have such talented readers who provide the best eye candy out there in blog land!! This was a win for all of us!! Thanks everyone!

Be sure to read about Angie’s trip to NYC. I’ll have more about my trip throughout the week!

I’m one of the co-founders of I Heart Faces and just entering for fun. I hope you’ll enter a photo this Monday and Tuesday.

Be sure to join Amy on Facebook for more fun!
Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!

We’re back in Texas!

Our trip to the Outerbanks was wonderful. If you don’t know, the Outerbanks is a chain of islands on the coast of North Carolina. We stayed at the Hampton Inn in Corolla. This was the most northern town where there are very few commercial areas along the beach, mostly a secluded area with enormous beach houses. If you go a little further north, you need a four wheel drive to access the beach and homes. That is where the wild mustangs roam. It was a really great place for a family vacation! This trip was for our kids, I hope they will remember this when they are grown.

Photos from our hotel pier.

Sunrise view from our balcony. Beautiful!

Here are just some of the things the kids did:

• Hung out with their cousins from Boston- Uncle Sal’s kids.

The Locurto boys had a great time together!

• Played on the beach

• Dolphin Watched

Most evenings there would be about 10-20 dolphins swim by our beach. Some had babies, we really enjoyed watching them!

• Chased Crabs- and cried about scary crabs:-)

• Climbed to the top of historic Currituck Beach Lighthouse

Those are our boys and men on to top!

• Kayaked

(I stayed with the baby, so you won’t see photos. I can’t believe nobody had a camera!)

Apparently they did this for several hours through canals near the lighthouse area. Nobody cried, so that was good! I went shopping with baby sister. We ate outside and fed some very large turtles in a pond.

• Fished of a VERY long pier

This isn’t the same pier, but I’m sure it was similar to this. I didn’t go, it made me dizzy to stand out there very long. Yikes! We were in Kitty Hawk here. The houses are not as big, much more charming.

• Swam at the nice hotel pools. There was even a lazy river pool.

• Boogie Boarded

The hurricane in the Atlantic brought in some big waves. All the boys had to do on this day was hold on tight.

• Played Putt Putt Golf

• Posed for Family Photos

One thing they didn’t enjoy. ha! Our planned ahead beach photos got rained out 5 minutes before the photographer showed up! Oh well, the ones around the hotel turned out cute. I was just happy to get the entire family in a photo. It stopped raining right as the photographer was leaving so we did get a few in front of the hotel.

• Collected Sea Shells

• Enjoyed evenings on the beach with the family

The parents enjoyed this time just as much as the kids! That is my fun sister-in-law Liisa. We were baffled at how Sal could just fall asleep with all the craziness that goes on with the kids. Pretty funny.

• Flew Kites

You can see my two kids on the left, one is holding the kite.

• Played sports on the beach

I highly recommend the Outerbanks. We really did it all! I need a vacation to recover from all the running around we did. I wish we had time to take a trip to see the wild horses. Maybe next time. We were very blessed to get to do all that we did, especially since the forecast was rain everyday. Hope you enjoyed the photos.

Be sure to join Amy on Facebook for more fun!
Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!