I had never heard of Duck Beach before moving out to the East Coast and luckily arrived just in time to go last year. Some people refer to it as the “Mormon Spring Break” and some people even did a horribly bad, but funny Duck Beach documentary.
Friday late arrivals
Hitimana, Rebecca, Whitney and I Loaded up my car and started the long journey down to the Outer Banks. We hit some Memorial weekend traffic that made the drive take longer and we ended up not getting to the house until 3am. Luckily everyone was still awake.
Saturday – Beach Day & Glow Party
Beach Rally Cry
After waking up and getting breakfast we were all ready to hit the beach. Peter gathered the Philly Souldjas with this Rally Cry.
Beach Volleyball Tournament
Each year their is a Duck Beach 4 vs 4 sand volleyball tournament. Shawn was swift to sign our team up which consisted of:
- Guys -Shawn, Matt, and me
- Girls – Rebecca, Emilee, and Whitney
We actually did really well when competing against some competitive sand volleyball teams. One was lead by Ice Man’s from Top Gun doppelgänger. Katie Foster & Jazmin Baer had a volleyball team as well, but we didn’t get to play against them.
Other awesome beach activities included:
- People Watching – Which included voicing over peoples conversations & discussing peoples choices of swim suits or lack of
- Football
- Ultimate Frisbee
- Bocce Ball
- Sand Castle Making
- A whole lot Of sun
Glow Party
Word at the beach was that there was going to be a glow party at the Vegas house. So after getting showered up we headed out to the party. It was great that they had a schmorgesborg of free glow sticks, but the party was broken up by the cops within 15 minutes. So that ended the night for me.
Sunday – Church, Dance Party, Acoustic Night
Sunday Church
We woke up and piled into the cars to head to church which for the Memorial day weekend is in a middle school auditorium. I walked in and while was looking for a seat I ran into my mission buddy Steve Redfern. It was great that we quickly got to catch up.
After church a lot of people went to Wright Brothers museum and monument. I saw it last year so I went home to help with the BBQ for Whitney’s Birthday party.
Progressive Dance Party
The Philly house was full of people with some amazing dance moves. It started in the kitchen, which then relocated to the 2nd floor. I came down to the 2nd floor and could not stop laughing at the site I beheld! Eric Hitimana was holding his laptop on his shoulder playing the music for the rest of the people in the circle to dance to. The laptop wasn’t very loud so I suggested that they move their party outside to a car stereo which they did. They had a driveway dance party until Shawn’s car battery died!
Acoustic Night
Another Duck Beach tradition is having an acoustic guitar night. Alden and Matt represented totally rocked it Philly house! Here is Matt playing “Brown Eyed Girl”.
Monday – Horse Wake Up Call, Bike Ride, Campfire
Horse Wake Up Call
Monday morning I got woken up by the people coming back from watching the sunrise. It was the last day for most people and I had invested in a getting a horse head mask and wanted surprise some people on their last day.
I learned 2 things.
1) Most people don’t like to be woken up on vacation at 6:30am
2) Just because people who like breakfast also like to get breakfast in bed. This does not apply to people who say they like horses!
Most people either didn’t notice me or gave me the death look! My favorite response was Juliann who excitedly flipped over to say “Good Morning” which was followed by a panic scream when she saw my horse head mask.
Bike Ride
After everyone left to drive back to Philly the rest of us went and rented bikes to better see the rest of the area. It was perfect weather and we made sure to send a video to those driving home to show them what they were missing.
Campfire & Smores
We decided that we wanted to have a camp fire & smores so we all pitched in and made it happen! I was shocked to walk outside and find a legit fire pit and TP fire perfect for roasting marshmallows.
Tuesday – Work Remote, Heads Up Tin Man, House Invaded, Settlers Of Catan
Work Remote
I had the opportunity to work remotely and stay at the outer banks for a few more days. It was definitely hard to stay focused with the beautiful weather and people coming and going from the beach. I was able to work as usual with client calls and company meetings. I was going to make an appearance with the Horse Head for the company meeting, but it really is hard to see/breathe in that thing.
Heads Up Tinman
After everyone got back from the beach we were looking for something to do. While looking around the house we noticed that we still had a bag full of waterballoons and the launcher to use. We tried shooting the balloons at the cornhole boards. That didn’t work out well so we developed a new game called “Heads Up Tin Man!”. It was so fun that we played for a couple of hours. This of course ended with a water fight and people getting thrown into the pool.
Ice Cream Hot Tub
After we got out of the pool we jumped into the hot tub, which was broken and more of a “warm tub”. As we were talking we heard the undeniable song of an ice cream truck. Matt was able to flag the truck down and to pull into our driveway. We then got the best ice cream the 2 college aged fanny pack wearing guys had to offer and headed back into the warm tub which was truly putting the cherry on top of the whole experience.
House Invasion
We started out the day thinking how we were going to make tuesday better than monday. We did a lot of great things like create “Heads Up Tin Man!” and ice cream in the warm tub, but something was still missing. Que are house being invaded by 20+ teenagers!
The backstory is that earlier in the day on the beach Eric had met and talked to 2 people from Virginia and invited them over from another fire & smores if they wanted. We didn’t hear anything from them and at 9:30 we decided to light some small fireworks and then play a round of settlers, Whitney and I had a score to settle. Juliann and I were on our way down stairs when we saw Ayrowyn coming up the stairs from the basement with a conga line of people!She walked past us and opened the front door to let in even more people.
We had been invaded by a group of what we felt like EFY kids who wanted to hang out with the EFY Counselors. some of the highlights of our visitors were:
- They brought their own dance party mix cd
- Were not shy to become friends on Facebook w/i 5 minutes
We entertained them by talking to them & starting a fire for smores. It turns out that most of them were not teenagers, but they were still a lot younger then most of us. After they all left to go watch the Mean Girls movie we sat around and talked about our favorite part of them coming over. We discovered a theme that all of our favorite moments involved 1 person from the group who we appropriately named Photoshop Boy.
Enter PhotoShop Boy
We couldn’t remember his name but we have dubbed him Photoshop Boy. Some of the highlights of our night with him were:
- He was wearing a wrist guard because he hurt himself from “Strenuous Photoshopping” the week before, hence the nickname.
- Ragged on Ayrowyns tepee fire making skills
- Asked why the flame of the fire was green (possibly was treated wood) and why none of us at the house were eating any smores
Settlers Of Catan
Photoshop Boy was able to make all of these impressions before we decided to play Settlers of Catan which is where he really started to shine. Some of our things from him while playing Settlers were:
- As Matt & I are setting up the board, he grabs the bag of red pieces and says “I’ve never lost with red”
- Tells us how many “good spots are left” and why are choices weren’t the best
- Asks “Where is the Gadianton robber?” and then proceeds to inform us that “Settlers of Zarahemla” was the original game and Settlers of Catan became popular after.
- Took off his wrist guard to play the game, he meant business!
Sadly Photoshop Boy had to leave with the others to go watch Mean Girls so we didn’t get to play with him. It was funny though because after he left we all discussed how we were secretly planning to crush him to give him his 1st loss at Red. We played anyways with the 4 of us (Matt, Ben, Juliann, and Whitney) and after some arguments on the rules for setting up had a really close game. It really could of gone anyones way, and Whitney could of won 3 turns in a row, but people kept putting the robber on her and stealing the 1 card she needed to win. This allowed me enough time to swoop in and get the win.
Wednesday – Last day of fun in the sun, Drove home
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