End of summer beach trip

Since we have a baby coming in about eight weeks I can't really take off a whole bunch of time as I'm saving all of my leave for maternity leave, but we wanted to take the kids to the beach for an end-of-summer vacation. My cousin's engagement party happened to fall on a Saturday evening and was being held near a beach so we decided to extend the weekend into a mini-vacation. The kids were beyond excited about spending time away at the beach, but I was still a bit wary about how crowded the beach can get and keeping an eye on them all. Turns out it was easier than expected.

We took off early on Friday and arrived before lunch. Our room wasn't yet ready, so we made some sandwiches, packed up our lunch and stuff for the beach and walked over. The kids could barely contain their excitement and started digging in the sand the minute we dropped our stuff. We rented a beach cabana every day so we could have some shade and a place to stow away our stuff.

The first beach day we spent as much time on the beach as we could and left when the kids started to look tired. After checking in to our room, we got everyone showered and dressed and then headed over to The Beach Pub for dinner. I had a pound of crab, but I should have gotten the flounder again. Don't get me wrong, the crab was good and definitely satisfied a craving I was having, but the flounder was so delicious last time. Like melt in your mouth delicious. Tom got some sort of platter and shared a scallop with me and I almost took the rest of them from him. And the hush puppies that came with the meal? They should be served with every meal everywhere. Enough said.

After dinner we walked the boardwalk with the kids and saw the statue of Neptune and took a few boardwalk pics. 

On the walk back to the hotel we stopped at Dairy Queen and got ice cream. It was about that point that Lexi started falling apart in a major way. Sheer exhaustion got the better of her. So we went up to our room, got everyone ready and put them all to bed. We had initially planned to read or watch TV or something once the kids were asleep, but we both wound up falling asleep with them. Good thing, too, because Tommy was up at the butt crack of dawn. 

I swear he got up early every day just to see the tractor comb the beach for trash. He also loved watching the people running and biking on the boardwalk and the garbage trucks. Once the rest of the family woke up we headed down for a quick breakfast before getting ready for the beach for the day. 

Our set up on Saturday was similar to the day before, but in addition to renting a cabana we decided to also rent a lounge chair so we could have a clean space for the kids to sit off of the sand while they ate lunch. This was our set up for the day. We also put out another towel about 10 feet in front of this set up and dumped the rest of the sand toys with it. Kind of our way of extending our beach space and line-of-sight to the water. 

Tommy and Lexi spent most of their time playing in the sand and running back and forth to the water. Stasa alternated happily searched for shells and body surfing the waves. 

Eventually we were all in the water playing in the waves. Tommy reached up to be held and snuggled right into my body. The kid was done. I took him up to our spot, wrapped him in a towel and lay down with him. He quickly passed out and stayed asleep for a couple of hours in the cabana. 

This one was a beach bum, too.

Although that didn't last too long. She stayed still long enough to warm up and then was up and playing in the sand and water with Stasa. 

We only stayed until about 3:00 on Saturday since we had to get ready for the engagement party and wanted to give the kids some time to cool off and relax out of the sun. Even then we managed to get in a solid six or so hours on the beach. The girls passed out in the car on the way to the party - the sun and surf took a toll on them. I remember as a kid coming home from my grandmother's, Garu's, house having spent the whole day on the beach and riding the waves and just crashing on the sofa still in my swimsuit. Those summer days are still some of my favorite memories and seeing the kids play like that brings back all the good feelings from those days. 

The kids were okay at the party - now don't get me wrong the party was great, but the kids must have been bored. We stayed a couple of hours and left a little after bedtime for the kids. Unfortunately we had to wake them all up when we got back to the hotel so we could get them up to the room and ready for bed. Fortunately they fell back asleep pretty fast and Tom and I were able to hang out on the balcony to people watch and chat.

You'd think that taking a beach vacation would be relaxing, but when you're traveling with a 2 year old who enjoys waking up every day at the crack of dawn. 

At least him being up early helped us all take full advantage of the day. Bright side, right? So once again we went down to breakfast after everyone was up and had a chance to actually wake up. After that it was back to the room to pack our lunch and things for the day. Since this would be our last real day on the beach we wanted to spend as much time as possible in the sand and surf. And again we rented a cabana and beach lounge and the kids immediately dropped their stuff and started playing. We lucked out with the weather - it was absolutely gorgeous every day and this day was no exception.

We spent nearly eight hours on the beach that day. Tom and I were spent, but I bet the kids would have happily played for a few more hours. We packed up, got back to our room and got the kids cleaned up so we could head out for dinner. We debated driving someplace, but I really didn't want to get in the car with the kids for fear of them falling asleep and being grumps during dinner. We walked up and down Atlantic and settled on a Tex Mex place and then walked the boardwalk some more before calling it a night. As we were getting ready for bed we were on the fence about spending another day on the beach or just getting on the road early. 

Of course the llama was up and at 'em before the sunrise again. 

This morning though his incessant chatter woke everyone up early and after thinking about it we chose to get some breakfast, pack up and get on the road. I'm glad we made that choice because traffic wound up not being too bad and we got home early afternoon with enough time to rest and get everything cleaned up from our trip, including washing all of the sand and grit on the car. And hey, we even got a couple of hours of peace in the car on the ride home.

Camping with the kids

After work on Friday we packed up the kids and the car and headed out for a weekend of camping in Gore, VA at The Cove. I found this place on a website of Virginia campgrounds and was somewhat skeptical since it wasn't a national park and didn't really have any reviews, but we figured we'd give it a shot. We had made a reservation for the weekend and were given a site within walking distance of the latrines. We didn't get on the road until after 7:00 due to some packing mishaps and a quick pitstop for dinner so by the time we arrived to check in it was already dark. The folks running the place were super nice and marked a map to show me how to get to our site. Unfortunately I'm not the best navigator and wound up leading us down an ATV trail. Poor Sexy Flexy roughed it, but managed to make it over a quarter mile on it. After a few more wrong turns we finally found our camp. Thankfully Tom and I had the foresight to do a dry run of putting up the tent so it went up pretty fast in the dark. Of course, our headlamps helped quite a bit, too. The girls ran around with a couple of the headlamps while we finished setting up camp for the night.

We weren't sure how big the site was since it was dark so we set up our tent closer to the firepit and picnic table (which we were grateful for because we left our big table at home). We initially put the girls in the same bed, but that lasted all of 30 minutes of "get off of me!" and "leave me alone!" before we split them up. So Tom slept with Lexi and I took a bed with Stasa and Tommy slept in the middle of the tent. I didn't sleep too well thanks to my air mattress slowly deflating through the night. I woke up on the rocky ground with a sore hip. I was happy to get up and out of the tent as the sun came up. Tom and Tommy got up with me and we got the coffee started while the girls slept.

Lexi woke up next and had fun walking around and digging in the dirt while Tom fried up some bacon and eggs for breakfast.

Our camp site was actually much larger than we thought and we could have easily fit a couple of more tents on it, even with our 10 person tent and large canopy. And the bathrooms were just a quick walk downhill and were pretty clean for a campground AND they had showers with hot hot water and plenty of toilet paper. And we discovered that they cleaned the bathrooms every day around lunchtime, which is when we took the kids down to hose them off. 

The girls were happy to explore our campsite and grounds after breakfast while we planned out the rest of our day. 

While the girls explored, Tommy snoozed in the tent. He's officially a tummy sleeper now. He took many a nap in the tent over the weekend.


After Tommy's nap we got dressed in our swimsuits and headed down to the beach. It was so much easier navigating in the daylight and we found the beach without any trouble. The sand was clean and white and the water super clear. We found a spot and got settled and the girls ran off to play in the sand and water.


I found myself so much more relaxed at this beach. I'm not a helicopter parent by any means, but I was glued to the kids sides when we were in Virginia Beach. That beach was (and always is) so overcrowded. This beach was much, much smaller, but even when it got busy it wasn't really crowded. And since it was a lake it was pretty shallow in the swimming area so we felt comfortable letting the girls run in and out of the water without us. There was a pontoon at the deepest point of the swimming area and Stasa kept asking to go out to it. I wasn't sure she'd actually make it since she's never really liked not being able to touch the bottom, but she happily swam out in her inner tube and then spent a good amount of time jumping off the pontoon.




After a few hours at the beach we packed up and headed back to our camp to rest and get ready for dinner. Stasa insisted she was tired and laid down in the tent.


She was *thisclose* to falling asleep and then Lexi ran in to play. Naptime never happened except for Tommallama.


Since the girls didn't want to nap and were going stir crazy hanging out at the camp site, Tom took them on a walk to let me and Tommy snooze. They came back bearing a bouquet of wildflowers for me.


This one was perpetually filthy. Like she would get hosed off or wiped down and minutes later we would find her looking like this.


Her hair was a rat's nest because she refused to let me put it up and I only managed to get it up a couple of times because I bribed her. I walked around with the kids while Tom made dinner - grilled chicken legs and tuna with corn on the cob and grilled potatoes. We were in the middle of dinner when we looked over and found this:


The sun and fun caught up to Miss I Don't Need a Nap. She fell asleep around 5:30/6:00 and wound up sleeping straight through the night. Stasa and Tommy stayed up with us for some campfire fun.


He was such a happy little camper.


Earlier in the day Tom foraged for fire wood and chopped up a couple of small felled trees and had quite a good amount of nice dry firewood for our fire. Stasa was his helper for the night. She was quite the pyro, just like daddy and Pappou, and Tom even found a good fire poking stick for her.


They made a nice fire - with just one match according to Tom - and Tom taught Stasa campfire safety. She was a great listener and was really cautious around the fire. She really enjoyed poking and stoking it, but always waited for Tom's permission before doing it. She even found her own rock to add to the fire pit and Tom etched an S on it for her.




Once we got the fire going, we broke out our s'mores ingredients and taught Stas how to roast marshmallows. She really enjoyed catching her marshmallow on fire so she could blow it out and she LOVED s'mores.



After we demolished our s'mores, we hung around and enjoyed the fire. We even read some bedtime stories by the fire.


Around 10:30 Stasa decided she had enough campfire, doled out kisses and crawled into bed. Tom and I enjoyed the peace and quiet and warmth of the fire (and a few drinks) before calling it a night. Tommy didn't sleep as well that night and I was only half asleep most of the night. I got up and out of bed as soon as it got light out. Tom was up with me and we almost able to have our first cup of coffee before the girls woke up. Before we knew it the girls were up and ready for the day.


Stasa dressed herself in her dirty clothes from the day before, put her hair up and brushed her teeth. Miss Responsible.


After breakfast and 100 trips to the bathroom, we got ready and headed off for the beach. Because we all woke up at the butt crack of dawn, we arrived at the beach at 9:00 am, well before anyone else. It was nice to have the beach to ourselves for awhile and the water was so peaceful. The lifeguard offered the girls some leftover sand toys and a small fishing net. We all tried catching some of the many minnows that were swimming around, but were unsuccessful. Those suckers are fast. Stasa spent 90% of the time in the water and went under quite a bit. I bet if we were there another two days she would have learned how to swim. She was so close.



Lexi was content playing in the sand and building and destroying sand castles. She ran in and out of the water a lot and wanted us to take her out to the pontoon like Stasa. I ended up taking her halfway out in her inner tube and then just splashed around with her in the shallow water.


Tommy played for a bit and then promptly passed out for HOURS on the picnic blanket. Once he woke up we packed up and headed back to camp.


When we got back to camp Stasa insisted she was tired and wanted to be in the tent. I tried talking her out of it since it was wicked hot in there, but she went in anyway and passed out in like two minutes.


While she napped, the rest of us hung out and snacked while we decided what to do about dinner and the rest of the night. It was supposed to storm later in the night and we had already planned to leave first thing Monday morning, so as the evening arrived and the thunder rolled in, we settled on leaving that night after dinner and s'mores.



While Tom grilled dinner, Tommy joined Stasa in the tent for a short nap.


After their nap we all ate dinner and finished packing up camp and started another camp fire to let Lexi have some s'mores.



Lexi took a few bites and then announced that she didn't like s'mores and only wanted the ingredients separate and uncooked. Whose kid is this? We got packed up and back on the road around 8:30 and headed home. Good thing, too, because it started raining as soon as we were on the road.

Our first family camping trip was a success. The girls really enjoyed it, so much so that Stasa was in tears when it was time to pack up. All said we really loved this campground and said we'd like to make this an annual trip with the family. Everyone we talked to was really friendly and a lot of the families come every year. We would definitely try to get one of the sites near where we were this time. It was super close to the bathroom (definitely a plus with kids) and felt far enough away, but was a quick hike or drive to the beach and main office. They have snow tubing there in the winter and tons of ATV trails and fishing spots.