Beach House 101

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people make this stuff harder than it needs to be. If you can't easily figure this out don't go on vacation with these people. All of this who cooks and cleans what and when ruins the whole vacation part. Just be adults.

Cooking and cleaning is not my idea of a vacation. OBX is overrated.

Y'all are the annoying-ass "adults" who come in 1.5 after everyone else has made, eaten and cleaned up dinner, then get out food, mess up the kitchen again, make a ton of noise while others are putting kids to bed, and leave your dishes in the sink because the dishwasher was already running. And you left crumbs all over the kitchen floor, so now there are ants. And you ate food that was supposed to be for TOMORROW'S dinner, so now there's not as much as there should be.

Yeah, you're SUCH a free spirit. Just like a teenager. But who cares? #YOLO!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people make this stuff harder than it needs to be. If you can't easily figure this out don't go on vacation with these people. All of this who cooks and cleans what and when ruins the whole vacation part. Just be adults.

Cooking and cleaning is not my idea of a vacation. OBX is overrated.

Y'all are the annoying-ass "adults" who come in 1.5 after everyone else has made, eaten and cleaned up dinner, then get out food, mess up the kitchen again, make a ton of noise while others are putting kids to bed, and leave your dishes in the sink because the dishwasher was already running. And you left crumbs all over the kitchen floor, so now there are ants. And you ate food that was supposed to be for TOMORROW'S dinner, so now there's not as much as there should be.

Yeah, you're SUCH a free spirit. Just like a teenager. But who cares? #YOLO!

No dog in this fight but this thread is making me LOL.

[Anonymous]

We do OBX every year -- 4 families. We each take a night to do dinner, and everyone eats at the same time (not that hard). We put all receipts for everything bought before and during the trip in a bowl and divide the total cost by the number of people (all kids are teen or older, so basically adults). It's worked for us for over 15 years.

[Anonymous]

I always take a good frying pan and a good knife. The one's in rental houses are usually terrible. I also take a first aid kit, and end up using it almost every year.

Buy big red solo cups, and give everyone a cup with their name written on it with a Sharpie. In addition to cutting down on the number of cups you throw away, it stops the "Is this my drink?" conversations, and you know who the person is who is leaving their drinks all over the house. You can put them through the dishwasher at night.

[Anonymous]

Our family never plans meals ahead since many activities can't be preplanned due to weather. We often decide to do things spur of the moment and spend more time than planned. We also enjoy eating out, picnics or going to the fish market and doing a crab pot. Relax, stay at the beach, enjoy the bonfires and eat junk food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest going out to dinner most nights. Nobody wants to cook or clean on vacation.

Use paper products.

With kids who are 1.5-4, going out to eat sounds like hell. In our family, the little ones are WIPED OUT at the end of the day. The under 4s are all asleep by 8pm latest (some by 6:30pm). No way we could go out to eat every night. Though we also love late afternoons on the beach when it's not so scorching hot and the sun isn't so strong. So rushing to shower and eat dinner out before 7pm is not happening for our family.

But we also all enjoy cooking. We do big, simple meals and rotate the cooking and cleaning. Someone goes to the store just about everyday (we have 10 adults and 6 kids) so we keep a running list of what we need, which is always something. If you have less people, less trips to the store might be doable.

If you do a cooler with stuff in it for the drive, make sure you put at least 2 beers in there to be cold on arrival. Nothing will get cold in the rental fridge and after driving, unloading, sweating etc you will want a COLD BEER.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We do OBX every year -- 4 families. We each take a night to do dinner, and everyone eats at the same time (not that hard). We put all receipts for everything bought before and during the trip in a bowl and divide the total cost by the number of people (all kids are teen or older, so basically adults). It's worked for us for over 15 years.

This is us, too. It's worked well so far! I also concur with another poster who suggested keeping a running grocery list somewhere in the kitchen. Whoever goes to the grocery store next can pick up the items on the list.