In Which Horses Are Painted

I found the card reader: Let the vacation pictures begin!

Here is the house we (Grandma/Kathy, Granddad/Dave, Ev, Liana, and the Glores) stayed in for our week on the Outer Banks. Apparently, the architectural "style" of Corolla and other, newer parts of said Outer Banks was influenced by the question, "How many roof lines, cantilevered rooms, half-levels, and decks can we put on one house while raising it off the ground in case of hurricanes?" Truly bizarre. Ours tried to put as many languages in its name as it had roof surfaces: Castle de la Mar. English and Spanish and French, oh my!

In truth, the house did right by us, with plenty of space for active girls, a well-equipped kitchen, and beds and bathrooms for all. It also came with access to a community pool, kiddie pool, and playground, which will be featured in later photo installations.

We had an active vacation, with plenty of beach and pool time, and some exploration of the northern part of the Outer Banks. Darcy picked up a new obsession (Orville Wright -- more on that later, too). We all got a bit bronzed. And we ate lots of local shrimp alongside the agricultural bounty of the Carrboro farmers' market.

We also had some art time. The local wild horse museum does horse-painting as a fundraiser on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the summer. No, you don't get to paint a wild horse, but for six bucks, you do get to don a plastic apron, get a plate-full of paint, a handful of brushes, and a pretty big wooden horse cut-out to paint.

It was a great event and the horses are reusable, too! We got to old Corolla village early so we could do other things before painting horses and saw the museum workers painting over Tuesday's art. Here are our young artists tackling their equine canvases. Darcy needed a bit more help and guidance than Liana.

The artists were more than happy to pose with the finished products after painting the smaller wooden horses that they got to bring home with them. A fun time was had by all.