Making Memories: Honeymoon Recap

Would you like to see our 100+ vacation photos from the honeymoon? If you thought yes, you're in luck since that's what we've got in store for today.

We woke up Sunday morning after the wedding to a gift basket our good friends had hidden in the trunk of our car, carefully crafted for our honeymoon...

It included an array of thoughtful things like sweet and salty snacks, a bottle of champagne, candle, other goodies, and even some dog treats for Basil! The best part, they made us a mixed CD for the car ride and included a preview of Emily's upcoming EP. We have amazing friends.

So, we opened up the snacks, popped in the mix and hit the road headed for Hatteras. After about 3 hours of driving and a quick stop at a roadside produce market, it wasn't long before we started seeing sandy strips of beach roads, kite surfers and signs for Hatteras:

I'd secured a cottage just a few miles outside of Hatteras in Salvo from a friend who owns down there and when we walked into this cozy remote hideaway, we immediately felt at home and some of that post wedding stress began to slowly melt away.

Someone else started to feel right at home too:

The cottage had so many beachy and personal details — everywhere we looked, there was something new there to greet us, like mermaids perched in the windows, surf boards fashioned as decor, and even a raised garden bed in the shape of a ship:

Our favorite decorative piece? This amazing wooden blue marlin sculpture by Etsy Artist, Ocean Arts:

Get this — the cottage also had a giant outdoor shower under the house complete with an overhead rainwater spout:

You haven't taken a shower until you've taken one outside at the beach.

We mentioned our friends included treats for Basil in our honeymoon gift basket — they were treats made from spent beer grains that came in a mason jar:

He loved them and we thought these could be fun to try to recreate in a recipe of our own at some point. Basil had no trouble getting acquainted to the beach or the cottage — it was fun watching him in a new environment and we felt so lucky we were able to bring him along for the trip:

Another favorite part of the cottage — the crow's nest:

We'd wake up in the mornings and sip coffee up there and enjoy a glass of wine up there as the sun would set in the evenings:

It was such a cool nook to hang out in, reminisce on how fun the wedding was, laugh about how weird it feels to actually be married and take in the beautiful views surrounding us:

One evening we heard loud guttural sounds coming from down on the deck. Basil seemed awfully taken with the shutters, where the noises seemed to be amplifying from:

With a quick turn of the shutter, we realized these must be the homes for many a frog family — each shutter must have had 5-8 frogs hanging out on them:

And it wouldn't be us if we didn't whip up a few beach eats. We enjoyed lots of seafood dinners which we'll share the recipes for here on the blog — and yes, those are homemade nachos! You just gotta do it sometimes:

Coffee, water, Bloody Mary's, Cheerwine and red wine sustained us — accompanied by spicy snacks:

We even made it out of the cottage a few times:

I was determined to go fishing and couldn't wait to stop by Frank & Fran's, one of my old stomping grounds down there:

After getting my fishing license, we hit up the beach. Basil had no fear and loved playing around in the surf:

I had fun keeping an eye on the tides with this free USA Tides app I downloaded for the trip:

We also hit up some antique, thrift and local art shops in true-to-us fashion:

This one place in particular, The Elegant Attic, blew our minds. It was an antique shop specializing in stained glass window panels from the United Kingdom:

The owner toured us around the shop and even in the side building where she lives so we could see all the ways she'd decorated with the window panels. It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. We talked about how cool it would be to buy one of the panels as a souvenir from our honeymoon, but we didn't leave with one in that instance. Maybe next time.

Another highlight of the trip? Uncle Eddy's Frozen Custard:

A little white forest and key lime custard cones later, we were good to go:

Another one of my old haunts is the Teach's Lair fishing marina where The Billfish is located:

We decided to grab lunch and admire the view of the fishing boats here when we realized the ferry line for Ocracoke Island would be more than 2 hours (after the 1 hour we'd already spent waiting). We'd originally planned to make a day of riding the ferry over to the island, walking around and have lunch over there, but it didn't pan out.

We did get a couple views from our time spent in the ferry line though, ha:

And got a chance to check out the scenery at the very tip of Hatteras:

Hands down our favorite part of the trip? Relaxing. We think Basil does the best job of illustrating how nice it was to stretch out and let the stress melt away:

As many of you know, Basil isn't allowed on furniture at our house except for the couch in the front room. You can imagine his delight of not only being able to lounge on the dog-friendly couch at the beach house, but to really soak it in with us at the same time.

Things started out innocently, with me on one side and him on the other:

We even took a few naps together on opposite couches:

By the end of the week, he was practically snuggled up on my chest:

We were under the mutual understanding of "what happens in Hatteras, stays in Hatteras..."

And finally, as we talked about last week, Mary and I agreed to finish up our stay at the beach a little early and turn the rest of our honeymoon into an RVA staycation when the rain and wind from Tropical Storm Andrea began to get serious:

As you can probably gather, we had a great time together and are so grateful to have had access to such a neat cottage that allowed us to really feel like we had a little getaway after the wedding. It's certainly a trip we will remember and cherish as the start to our marriage — with both sentimental and fun laughs along the way.

So tell us, have you been to Hatteras or the Outer Banks? What did we miss out on to put on the list for our next trip? Did you go on a honeymoon? Was it cut short and what favorite memories to you still hold onto from your trip?

P.S. For those that have been following for a while now, did you notice the many cameo appearances my prized paint-visor made throughout this trip?