New Year's Eve 2009

We made the trip down to Hatteras yesterday and plan to be here through New Year's Day.  It rained hard this morning leaving us with a flooded street.  It cleared out this afternoon and warmed up to the high 50's.

The storm that hit in November has reshaped the beach, making it much wider.  It will be interesting to see if the wider beach lasts until next summer.  The house at the end of the street still has its carports full of sand and it appears as though no one is living there.  Enjoy the pictures (double click in the picture box for larger pictures).

Coastal Storm

A coastal storm hit the Outer Banks last week, wrecking havoc on Buxton, Mirlo Beach and Nags Head.  Dare County is estimating that the storm caused $5.2 million in damage.  The dune at the end of our street, Cottage Avenue, was breached and water ran all the way out to Old Lighthouse Road and beyond.  We were fortunate that our house did not sustain any damages due to the elevation of our lot.  Bobcats are in the process of rebuilding the dune, but the more significant issue continues to be the damage to Highway 12 in Mirlo Beach that is restricting traffic to the south end of Hatteras Island.

Check out slides 3, 4, 6 and 42 from the attached link.  The Porsche belongs to a woman who lives at the end of the street (closest to the ocean/dune)!
http://islandfreepress.org/2009Archives/11.13.2009-NightFallsOnIslandsBatteredByTheOceanAndSound2/index.html

OBX Half Marathon Finishers!

Carolee, Melissa and Kristyne ran the OBX Half Marathon this morning.  After an early wake up call (before 5 a.m), we drove up the beach to mile marker 11 in Nags Head and dropped the girls off at the race start.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day, with temps in the high 50's at race start (7 a.m.) and in the upper 60's when they crossed the finish line.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky!  The race course ran south through a couple of Nags Head neighborhoods and crossed over the Manteo bridge for a downtown Manteo finish.  Melissa had been sick all week and got off her death bed to finish in 2:07+.  Kristyne finished in 2:09+ and Carolee finished in 2:25+...a great showing by all three ladies!  Congratulations and wear the bling with pride!

Birthday Girl!

With school starting again we have been very busy, making it difficult to get down to the beach. This was our first visit since Labor Day and the entire family spent a long weekend celebrating Carolee's birthday (the actual day was Saturday). Melissa did the cooking for the birthday meal...stuffed shells and Emril's chocolate cream pie...topping off a day of running (12 miles for Carolee & Melissa), walking the beach, bike riding, watching football and fishing (3 speckled trout for Eric). The weather was nice on Friday (mid 60's) and has gotten progressively cooler each day. It has been very windy, but it is really hard to complain...its the beach! Anyway, Carolee is going home with books, CD's, clothes, kitchen knives and other booty from her birthday bash. P.S. I know this is somewhat topical, but exactly what did Obama do to deserve a Nobel peace prize?

Preston

The Berry side of the family spent the last week vacationing in Cape Hatteras and stayed at the house. Carolee and I joined them for the Labor Day weekend. The visit was short, but nice. We got to meet my niece Kate's son Preston for the first time. What a great little guy! He was so glad we brought our dog Casey along...oof, oof! If you want to learn more about this little guy, check out the following blog: http://www.mylovelyladybump.blogspot.com/

Flounder

Eric and I woke up early on Sunday and decided to get an hour of surf fishing in before we left to come home. The flounder were biting and we caught three within 30 minutes. This 19 incher was our Sunday night dinner!

Storm

We had a storm system move through on Thursday...a 35-mile wide band of rain that was centered over Buxton. It looked like nighttime at 3:30 p.m. and the rain came down in buckets.