Roanoke Island Festival Park is located on the Manteo Waterfront on Roanoke Island and is best know for the 69 foot Elizabeth II. The Elizabeth II is a representation of a particular 16th-century English merchant ship, Elizabeth, one of seven in Sir Walter Raleigh's 1585 expedition fleet to establish ...

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It's no secret that the Outer Banks is a wonderful destination for weddings. In fact, I've heard that we're second only to Las Vegas as a wedding destination in the United States. The Outer Banks Wedding Association hosts a very popular wedding Expo every January so that future brides can meet with local wedding vendors. As the Outer Banks has grown in popularity, so has the number of wedding vendors. OBXbrides.com is a website started by a ... << MORE >>

The Outer Banks is home to quite a few talented musicians, some who play nightly in bars and restaurants, others who work the wedding scene and a few who travel regionally and nationally to perform. We even have a local celebrity musician here on the Outer Banks, Tim Reynolds of the Dave Matthews Band. When not touring the country, he performs from time to time around the Outer Banks with his other band TR3 ... << MORE >>

If you are a bride thinking about getting married on the Outer Banks, you're not going to want to miss the annual Wedding Expo put on by the Outer Banks Wedding Association. This weekend, January 6-8, will be jam-packed with fun, informational and educational events all put on by the Wedding Association.

Meet David Tutera of WE TV's "My Fair Wedding with David Tutera" at a special cocktail reception at the Duck Woods Country Club on January 7th, from ... << MORE >>

If you are a bride thinking about getting married on the Outer Banks, you're not going to want to miss the annual Wedding Expo put on by the Outer Banks Wedding Association. This weekend, January 6-8, will be jam-packed with fun, informational and educational events all put on by the Wedding Association.

Meet David Tutera of WE TV's "My Fair Wedding with David Tutera" at a special cocktail reception at the Duck Woods Country Club on January 7th, from ... << MORE >>

It's been a little while since my last blog post... I'm just coming down from all of the hustle and bustle of the Christmas holiday. My relatives just left town yesterday morning, and I'm still cleaning up the tinsel and wrapping paper!  What a wonderful time we all had together... Christmas Eve with friends and family in Currituck drinking wassail and eating roasted oysters; Christmas morning in Southern Shores opening gifts; and Christmas night at our house ... << MORE >>

One of my favorite Christmas-time activities is driving around to see the Christmas lights. I appreciate all the forms of decoration people choose to display... whether they adorn their homes in colorful, blinking bulbs and plastic reindeer or delicately drape their trees in warm white lights, they're all beautiful to me. If you're out and about after dark and want to know where to go to see the best lights on the Outer Banks, ... << MORE >>

Local author and maritime historian John Amrhein, Jr. delves into the history of local piracy with his new documentary Treasure Island: The Untold Story. This true story begins right in our very own back yard... Ocracoke Island. In 1750 the Lloyd brothers, two merchant captains from Virginia, stole a massive treasure from a disabled Spanish galleon in Ocracoke Inlet. They fled with their treasure to Norman Island in the Caribbean. The treasure was recovered not long afterward. ... << MORE >>

If you've never attended the Annual Festival of Trees, then you're missing out on a great local Holiday Tradition. Benefiting the Outer Banks Hotline (a non-profit organization dedicated to helping victims of sexual and domestic violence), the Festival of Trees is a 3 day event that begins today and culminates on Saturday night with the Holiday Social. Businesses sponsor trees, decorate them and then they are auctioned off to the highest bidder at the Holiday Social.

Starting at 108 Budleigh in Manteo, the Festival of Trees goes from noon-9PM both today and Friday ... << MORE >>

I'm a big advocate of local businesses... after all, I am a small business owner myself. I believe that if you support the folks in your neighborhood and town, then it will cycle around and benefit everyone... from the boutique owner, to the waitress to the real estate agent. That being said, on Black Friday I decided to brave the traffic and check out all the great goods our local merchants had to offer.
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I apologize in advance if you're not here, or not planning on coming, to the Outer Banks this Thanksgiving week. The weather has been PERFECT. Not just pretty, but short-sleeves, walk your dogs on the beach, flip-flop wearing kind of pretty. And the rest of the week is supposed to be beautiful, too, with highs in the mid-sixties. Sorry for rubbing it in!!!

For those of you who are ... << MORE >>

With the GORGEOUS 60 degree weather we've been having, it's hard to believe that it's time to start Christmas shopping!  But the time is upon us once again, and just like last year I'm going to try to make as many of my purchases locally as I can. Not only can we find just about everything one could possibly want right here on the Outer Banks, but buying locally supports the Outer Banks economy... and I'm all for that!

The Outer Banks Women's Club is hosting their Annual Christmas Craft Show on November ... << MORE >>