Our Family Vacation

I haven’t blogged in a while because we were away on vacation.  I didn’t think it was wise to let all of the burglars of the world know that our home was unoccupied.  We’ve been back for a couple of days now.  For some reason, I feel like I have jet lag, and have been falling asleep in my chair anytime I try to sit down.  The boys are a little out of sorts too.  Thankfully, they are enjoying playing with their toys that they haven’t seen in about a week.

Our vacation was to Virginia Beach.  We spent our time there in a beach house with Evan’s entire immediate family and few of their friends.  There were three floors and nine bedrooms.  The boys shared a room right next to our room on the second floor. 

We spent most of our time at the beach house.  The boys really enjoyed swimming in the pool. However, we did venture out to the beach a couple of times, as well as the boardwalk.  We had a couple of really hot days there which made being outside a little unbearable, but I am happy to report that our family of four returned home with little to no sunburn.

Let’s start at the beginning . . . the trip down started out well.  We were clipping along, making great time.  Then we hit the state of Virginia and the four hours we had left turned into 7+ hours.  There was just so much bumper to bumper traffic.  Our boys did great though.  They didn’t complain.  They just did their activities I had brought for them or listened to music.  Evan and I were more frustrated because we left early so we could spend the late afternoon/early evening having fun there.  Instead we arrived at 6:00.

We did get to swim and eat dinner with Evan’s family who made it there a couple of hours ahead of us (they split their trip into two days).  However, we headed to bed a little after 9:00 because we were so worn out. 

Sunday morning, the boys and I went to check out the beach with their cousins, Evan’s sister Amanda, and his mom.  They were just dressed in their normal clothes because we were sightseeing, not swimming.  Well, it was soon apparent, that my two children cannot stay on their feet.  A wave washed onto shore and Daniel went down – scaring him as far from the water as he could go.  Then, Nicholas, whose body was a lot closer to the ocean, got knocked down.  He landed on his butt and then, almost did a back flip.  He wasn’t fazed by it and it definitely didn’t stop him from being near the water.

Feeling safer away from the water.

The pool is where they were most comfortable.  It only went up to five feet, which worked well for the adults to stand and the younger crowd to have some deep water to jump in, but not too deep.  They definitely spent a lot of time jumping in the water.  They also played with squirt guns, diving toys, and a football.

Nicholas and Carter playing football with Grandpa.

One of many, many jumps in the pool.

Shooting people with the water gun.

Evan also made a lot of jumps - mostly to get people soaked!

Daniel loved to jump too.

This float was great!  We felt safe letting him swim and not holding him every moment.

Grandma and Daniel

On one of the hottest days of the week, we ended up checking out the boardwalk.  There was a large Neptune statue that people wanted to see.  Unfortunately, we parked very far away.  Round trip we walked about forty blocks (and I am not exaggerating).  We were soaked with sweat.  My contacts burned as the sweat dripped in my eyes.  We ended up getting DQ on the way back.  We had to eat it fast because it melted so quickly.   It was good exercise though.  I definitely had no guilt over the blizzard that I ate.

We left the stroller at home - oops!

King Neptune statue

Close up of all of the cousins plus two friends on the ends.

Nicholas celebrated his 6^th Family Day on Thursday.  We drove home that day, so we decided to celebrate it early.  So, the four of us went out to lunch one afternoon to one of Nicholas’ favorite restaurants.  The kids were given cardboard mustaches to put on their straws, which they had fun with.

Then, we went to the store to get a few things.  When I opened up the van door, I saw Daniel has somehow affixed the mustache to his face.  I couldn’t help but laugh.

It was another hot day, so we went back to the beach house to swim.  The majority of the people were at the movies, so we pretty much had the pool to ourselves.

More jumping

I took the majority of the pictures, so I had Evan take a few to show that I was there.

On Tuesday evening, I encouraged Evan to go see the ocean.  He hadn't been there yet.  He was just going to check it out - at least that's what I thought.  He and Nicholas started out with glasses on.  Just letting the waves wash over their feet.

Daniel was still afraid of the water at this point.

Then, the waves got a little higher and the fun began . . .

Shirt is off now!

He still wants nothing to do with the ocean.

Looking for a good wave!

Evan is jumping in the wave.  You can't even see him.

Evan decided that Daniel needed to join in the fun.  So, he helped him conquer his fears.

This isn't so bad.

Here comes a wave.

All smiles!

Afterwards, we headed back to the beach house.  Since they were already wet, it was back into the pool!

Just floating around

Daniel loved to jump too!

On our last full day there, we decided to go to miniature golf.  Neither of the boys had played before.  Thankfully, we didn't really pay too much attention to our scores.  Daniel played on an off.  He was more interested in the landscape.  It was free re-play until 6:00, but one round of 18 holes was enough for all of us.  We headed home for lunch afterwards and more swimming.

It was a pirate themed course.

Some of the mini golfers.

Most of the people left today (Saturday), but we had to leave Thursday.  Evan took off days the week before for the CC practicum, so he came back to work Friday and Saturday (lucky him).  We were happy to see that the Virginia traffic wasn't that bad.  We were on track to make record time.  Now this is where I spin the story to make it sound like it wasn't an accident that we ended up in Washington D.C. ;)  Evan is a homeschooling father.  He saw an educational opportunity to show the boys the nation's capital.  It didn't matter that it added an extra 1-1 1/2 hours to our trip.  It wasn't good enough that we saw it just from the highway.  We needed to get on those side streets.  We passed by the Pentagon, the Washington monument, the back of the Lincoln memorial.  We even went down a street where many embassies are located. Nicholas told us it was one of his favorite parts of the trip.  Go figure.

The Pentagon

Washington Monument

Back of the Lincoln Memorial

Even with our little educational detour, we still made pretty good time.  We are happy to be home.  Yesterday was a little rough as we were all exhausted.  I'm trying to get the boys back on their routine and detox them from their non-stop snacking habits that they had at the beach house.  

Overall, we're thankful that we got to get away with our family.  I'm hoping that we all made good memories. We're thankful for the shared time together.