Emerald Isle, North Carolina – Beach Trip 2017

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Last week I went on a family vacation to Emerald Isle North Carolina. This trip came at the perfect time because I was seriously needing a break and my family hasn’t taken a vacation together in at least 20 years. When I say family I really mean my extended family…my parents, grandmother, older sister, niece, little sister, my other niece, etc. We aren’t really a family that travels together so this trip was a big deal. We were all headed out to see my oldest brother’s daughter, my oldest niece Brie, graduate from high school.

Yeah, let that sink in for a minute…I officially have a niece that has graduated from high school. Way to make a girl feel old!! HA!! I can really only feel better about that by knowing that I was in high school when she graduated. At least that’s what I keep telling myself!!

So let’s get back to the beach trip…as I’m sure you can already guess this post is going to be a bit of a photo overload!! Let’s get to it!!

First things first…why Emerald Isle? Well…that’s a good story. My brother and his family live in Havelock, North Carolina which is about 40 minutes from Emerald Isle. Since we (obviously) knew that my oldest niece would be graduating from high school this year we have been planning this trip for a long time. We actually booked a condo way back in November but then about a month before our trip the condo owner sold the condo and we were left without a place to stay. All I can say about that is it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because we were able to rent a beach house via VRBO that was much bigger and worked out much better for the whole family. The only con was that it was a little further away from everything than we planned but that turned out to be no big deal!

We ultimately decided to rent this amazing shabby chic beach house appropriately named “CShore”. It was completely adorable and I would totally stay there again!! It had four bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, three floors with the top floor being more of a “bird’s nest” that had an amazing view, a wraparound porch on the first floor, an outdoor shower, right on the water and right across the street from public beach access.

I believe it’s rented for the whole summer but you can check out the listing here!!

Like I mentioned above, our house was across the street from public beach access but it was right on the water of the NC Intercostal Waterway (sounds more confusing than it actually is). We had some pretty fantastic views from both the wraparound porch and the bird’s nest…

…I mean I could seriously look at that every day for the rest of my life and never get tired of it.

And you better believe we were some beach going fools!! I love the beach and even spent a solo day at the beach and it was truly the best day ever. Just me, the ocean, my book and some Chicken in a Biscuit crackers. Does it get any better than that? I don’t think so…

…that’s a little slice of heaven on earth right there y’all!!

One night we got gussied up and drove over to Fort Macon to take some family pics. However I was more interested in the beach…

…I felt like I was in a Nicholas Sparks novel. Sigh.

And you can’t talk about vacation without talking about food. A couple of nights were pretty low-key and we ate at IHOP (post graduation when nothing in town was open) and Bojangles (it’s a North Carolina MUST). And then there were a couple of nights we ate out. We tried Flipperz in Emerald Isle one night and while to food was pretty good and the drinks were amazing (you HAVE to try the Bikini Martini if you go) the service was pretty slow and there was an hour wait.

But our favorite meal of all was from Jackie’s American Grille. We were actually just looking for a quick bite to eat before we hit up put-put golf and go carts one night when we stumbled across this gem of a restaurant. The drinks were freaking amazing and the food was out of this world!!! The wait staff was super friendly and the service was fast. I also may have had the best lobster mac and cheese of my entire life that night. I hate I didn’t take a pic of it but I ate it too fast! HA!! The manager/owner even came over and checked on us and when he found out we were all in town to celebrate Brie graduating from high school he sent over free deserts to our table!!! Talk about amazing customer service.

And then, of course, there was the whole reason we went to the beach in the first place, to see my oldest niece Brie graduate from high school!!! Congratulations Brie!!!

Eventually we had to load up and head home but not before I snuck one last pic from our back porch of the gorgeous sunrise over the water. It was simply stunning and the perfect send off and end of our trip.

Have you been to Emerald Isle, North Carolina??
Do you love going to the beach??