Last week Andrew and I had an amazing time on a week-long vacation to Holden Beach, NC. Our trip was planned somewhat last minute, but we're so glad we decided to go somewhere over Andrew's spring break instead of just staying at home. It was so wonderful to be able to get away from everything and just spend time relaxing together with few distractions. We had never been to Holden Beach before, but after last week I have a feeling we'll be back!
The weather was perfect with only two days being rainy or extremely windy, but it worked out perfectly because we went outlet shopping on the rainy day and went for a walk on the beach (making sure there weren't any tornado warnings) and watched movies inside when it was really windy. On all of the other picturesque days, we went for bike rides in the morning and in the afternoon we were on the beach reading, sleeping, or just watching the waves roll in. We went out to dinner three nights and ate in on the others. Overall I'd say it was a perfect vacation...we didn't really want to come home!
I took a ton of pictures, but they were mostly of the beautiful sunsets we witnessed nearly every night. So with no further ado, I'll let the photos roll...
This is the house we stayed in. It was on the 2nd row (way cheaper than the ocean front homes!) so we just had to walk across the street to get to the beach!
Even though we weren't right on the ocean, we still had a little bit of a view from the upstairs. We ate breakfast and drank coffee out on the front deck in the mornings.
One of the things I really loved about the house was all of the windows upstairs displaying the beautiful views in the front and the back. Behind the house was a marshy area and the intracoastal waterway, so even with all of the windows it was still pretty private. The picture above is from the kitchen...I would just LOVE to have a view like that from my kitchen at home!
Now onto the many beautiful sunsets...these first few are of the sun setting over the intracoastal waterway.
We even got a beautiful rainbow and sunset on the rainy day.
And here are a few more pictures of the beach in the late afternoon.
Besides shrimp, I'm not a huge fan of seafood, so of course Andrew was really excited that he got to eat his fill during the week!
Becks!! (somewhat of a Sharpley family tradition/novelty)
I enjoyed some shrimp with a delicious pasta from
Sharky's in Ocean Isle.
And of course, who doesn't love HUSH PUPPIES!?!
We also ate at
Inlet View Bar & Grill (no food pictures, sorry!) and I enjoyed a delicious grilled shrimp burger and Andrew had yet another seafood platter!
Now onto a few pictures of us...
The island was great for bike rides in the morning.
There was a pier about a mile away so we walked to it when it was too windy to sit out on the beach.
Gettin' our beach on!
On the back deck
Trying to get some photos worthy of the Christmas card...
And a few more random ones...
Boats in the intracoastal waterway
A cute little house!
And this ends the slide show of our vacation. As you can see we didn't do way too much, but that's exactly the way we wanted it to be. Holden Beach is a beautiful place and we really enjoyed it. Although we didn't want to leave, we came home relaxed and refreshed...and looking forward to going back again!
