Virginia Beach

The kids had no school on Monday so we decided to have some fun and head to Virginia Beach. It's about 3.5 hours away so we booked a hotel for the night. It was a very fun beach area! There was a long boardwalk with all kinds of tents set up selling jewelry, art, clothing, and carnival style food. The main street also had tons of fun shops, ice cream places, candy stores, and restaurants. 

Our hotel was just across the street from the beach and they let us check in early. We dropped our stuff and walked to the beach. The sand was really soft and the waves were much nicer than at the beach in Delaware. It was nice to feel comfortable allowing the kids to play in the water without being right by their sides. 

There was a long fishing pier, but you had to pay to even sightsee from it.

Gentle waves made for a lot of fun. Chris even talked me into going out to my shoulders to jump waves. Thankfully the water is a nice temperature. 

We spent tons of time building sand creations.

The weather was absolutely perfect. It was in the high 70's and plenty warm to be in our swimsuits. After playing for several hours, we hit up a seafood restaurant. I had Mahi Mahi and Chris tried the Flounder. We were all pretty tired out after dinner so we called it a night.

The next day the beach was almost totally empty. It was crazy. We got to enjoy super fluffy sand in the morning and even found a few shells that had washed up overnight. The best part was seeing pods of dolphins swimming just offshore. There were tons of them! The kids also enjoyed seeing all of the F-18's taking off right over our heads. Apparently there is a big naval base there. It was like our own mini air show. 

There were even a couple playgrounds right on the sand. The kids loved it!

There had been a big sand sculpting competition recently. It was Dr. Suess themed. These sand sculptures were a few days old, but still pretty fun to see.

Now it's back to the grind around here. We are getting ourselves ready for a trip from Grandma. Can't wait!

Fall Fest

Today was a gorgeous Saturday. A perfect 80 degree day full of soccer and fun. Grace and the Orange Fireballs played really well and she managed another goal. She seems much more motivated lately. I think it may be because Grandma will be coming soon to see her play.

After the game we went out for slurpees and then home for some lunch. We decided to check out a local Fall Festival. It was a pretty fun little community activity.

This firetruck sprayed tons of water and the kids loved running through it to cool off.

Of course we had to hit up the face painting. 

A green mouse... (and blue cotton candy face)

shooting star...

and paw print.

The kids were excited to run into Olaf.

We also watched an Irish dancing group perform, jumped in bouncy houses, and saw a bunch of baby animals. It was a fun afternoon. 

For dinner the kids went over to a friends house for pizza while Chris and I got a date. We hit up a place called Coastal Flats. It was pretty tasty. Especially our desserts: a key lime pie and a flourless chocolate waffle. Mmmm!

Football, Teeth, and Trains

Yesterday was an interesting day. Everything was going fairly normal until Chris texted me about a ticket to a football game. Apparently our friends (The Nicholes) had four tickets to the Washington Redskins vs. NY Giants game and they were only using three of them. Tyler had invited Chris, but being the nice husband that he is, he knew he should let me go instead. He had just returned from a week long trip to Vegas and Oregon. So, yeah, I got myself ready to go.

Grace came home from school with a tooth treasure box. She was so excited to have popped out her tooth at school. I helped her find our special tooth fairy pillow before I left.

Then it was off to the game. It didn't start until 8:30pm, but it takes a little over an hour on the metro with about a mile of a hike to get there. The plan was to meet up at the stadium. I made it there without any issues. It was so impressive to see the stadium. This was my first NFL game.

Fed Ex Field

I found our friends and we went inside. We actually had AMAZING seats on the lower level. We were in row 15 up from the field. It was so cool!! You could actually see the players and how huge they really are. It was crazy to see how fast they are too. When the ball is snapped they move so fast. It seemed so different than on tv.

Seeing as it was NY vs. Washington there were a lot of fans from both teams. I was rooting for NY even though I didn't really care. My teams are the Seahawks and Vikings. I was sitting next to a lady also rooting for the Giants. Made it fun for sure. 

A little up close time with Eli.

And my awkward selfie to prove I was there...

These games tend to go really late. Since it was a school night, and I knew it would probably take me at least an hour to get home, we left the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter. By then the Giants seemed to have the game nicely wrapped up, and it was already 11:10pm. So we walked very fast to the station where we waited for our train. And waited...and waited. They needed a silver train. I needed a silver or blue. Either way I needed to go a few stops and then transfer to an orange train to get me home. Let me just say...this was the worst trip home ever!! Feel free to skip the following long paragraph.

Eventually, after waiting probably 30 minutes, a blue train came. I said my goodbyes and decided to hop on. I took it to a station where the orange line connects and got off. At this point it's almost midnight and the train service is about to end for the night. Because of the game they are running some trains an extra hour. I am watching the arrival board, and all it is listing is 3 silver trains. So I go ask a metro worker about it. They tell me, "oh yeah, an orange will come soon." Ok. So I wait. Another 30 minutes or so go by. Only silver trains. Then on the loudspeaker the guy says, "everyone wanting an orange train, you need to get on this next silver and meet an orange in metro center." Ok. So we all scramble up to the arriving train. Guess what? It's packed. Like people's faces smashed into the windows packed. Thanks a lot metro man. By some miracle I saw a person decide to get off, so I jumped into his spot. Phew! I think I'm golden. I ride to the place they told us and get off. I go right up to the metro lady to ask when the orange will be coming. She looks at me like I'm crazy. "You need to get back on the silver", she says. I explain how I need orange. She's like, "there ain't no more oranges. Take the next (and last) silver and then maybe get a cab." Great. Stupid metro people. So I wait again. Finally this last train comes. I get on and ride as far as I can. Sure enough there are tons of other people waiting for an orange train that is not supposed to ever come. Most of those people had been on earlier silvers and have been waiting for over an hour. By this time I am starving, thirsty, super annoyed and really tired! It's after 1:30am. Eventually enough people bugged this metro man enough and they rerouted a train to come get us. Thankfully I did not have to get a taxi. I got to the station, ran to the car, and drove the couple miles home. It was now 2am.

I was so bugged!! I didn't even stay for the end of the game and it took me almost 3 hours to get home. So lame!! Then when I got home I noticed our trash was all scattered around in front of the house. I quickly picked up what I could and went inside. Chris had been watching out the window for me and said that about 90 seconds before I pulled up he saw a FOX going through the trash. Thanks honey for the heads up. I coulda been attacked. He was very sweet though and cooked me eggs and toast for a pre bed snack. What a crazy, crazy night. If I ever go to another game there...something else will have to be done. 

This morning came very fast. We awoke to Grace crying loudly. Oops! That darn tooth fairy spaced her duties. We told her that the she was probably just very busy last night and didn't get around to it. Hopefully tonight is the night. Hopefully we can stay awake long enough. :)

I did really enjoy the game. I wish Chris could have gone too. Maybe another time. Thank you to the Nicholes for letting me tag along!

Soccer and Neil

The last few days we have been in cruise control. With Chris still gone I am trying to just keep things simple. Our Saturday has been nice and relaxing. We went to see Grace play in her first soccer game of the season. Go Orange Fireballs! She's harnessing her inner superstar with the #23 jersey.

Thankfully there was no one keeping score at this game. Those Yellow Cheetahs were a lot better than us. At least Grace was able to get a goal. She was pretty excited. I forgot how hard it is to watch this age play. It gets so much better when they are a bit older. Oh well. It's all about fun and learning for now.

Other than some soccer, I spent the day working on printing some of Neil's baby pictures. The kids each have a small baby album of their first year. Sadly Neil's only went up to his second month. I decided I had better fix that. Now at least they all have the same amount of printed pictures. After that there are no guarantees.  

It's neat to see how much they love going through their albums. I like being able to tell them about what is going on in the pictures. I may need to start printing more often. We just never look at all our digital pics. I need to think of something because I don't want a million albums either. Ideas??

Neil has been going to 2 different preschools during the week. So far he has adapted very well to the different routines. It's more of a struggle for me to keep track of what day it is and where he is going. He's been working on writing his name and he will even draw the cutest stick figure of himself. He still loves the color green. I'm just glad that he is acclimating well to the general ed preschool class. I still can't picture him going to kindergarten next year, although I am super excited! Hopefully he will just continue to progress.

Happiest year of my life...

...or rather I'm just beginning the supposed happiest year of my life. Today I turn 33, and according to some study people report this age as the happiest one of their lives.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/03/29/survey-people-arent-happiest-until-they-reach-age-33/   I guess that should make me feel good. It should be a super happy year right?

I wasn't quite sure how my day was going to go. Chris left early this morning for a week long trip to Vegas for work followed by hunting in Oregon. Yep, he left on my birthday for a week. I'm such a nice wife. Had to throw that out there. Anyway, I got all the kids off to their respective schools and had a few hours to myself. I went to my Zumba class, showered, and then took myself out to lunch at Panera. I even indulged in a sweet treat. After some shopping I went home to be there for Neil. We spent the afternoon playing and reading books. The girls came home and we played outside some more. I didn't feel like cooking so we went to Noodles and Company for dinner.

My wonderful neighbor got me the pot of daisies. My mom sent me my new favorite perfume by Halle Berry, a visiting teacher made me muffins, and Chris bought me a bouquet. I also received several sweet cards in the mail. Overall, it was a nice and relaxing day. The best year of my life is off to a good start. :) Now if I can just survive this next week...

Back to School Mania

This week went by so fast! A new school year has begun, woohoo! The girls both started on Tuesday morning. Fourth grade and first grade here they come.

Neil started on Thursday morning. Got to put on his backpack and ride the bus to preschool. He loves it!

On Friday we had an open house for Neil's other preschool. I think he will really like it.

Grace's soccer also started this week. They are the Orange Fireballs. She has three other girls on the team that are also in her class. So fun! She's really enjoying it.

Last Hurrah!

For the last few days of summer we decided to do a couple more fun things. We had been wanting to check out the beach for a while, but it is such a long drive. I had seen some really fun looking pictures of Bethany Beach, DE from one of my Oregon friends. After some research and talking to the local peeps, we decided to go for it. 

We left about 7am and didn't have too much traffic to deal with. It was a really fun little beach town! We arrived around 10:30 and immediately went to find some brunch. We settled on the Penguin Diner. It looked like a fun place, but the wait was crazy! We were there forever and the food was only ok. Probably won't go there again.

After breakfast/lunch we headed down to the beach. There were a ton more people on the sand than I'm used to. Lots of umbrellas and people set up for a long, full day by the ocean. We found ourselves a spot and set up our chairs and toys before hitting the surf. What a pleasant surprise. The water was really nice to be in. We spent a long time playing in the waves. Chris even took the girls further out to swim and ride waves in. The water did seem much saltier than we are used to, but I will take that over arctic temperatures any day!

After playing in the water we would spend some time building sandcastles and turning the kids into mermaids. It was pretty hot, but taking breaks to go for a dip made it fun. We ended up playing in the water a few times before drying off and heading back into the town. We found an ice cream place and enjoyed walking down the boardwalk. Even tried to snag a family selfie. 

Then it was back on the road for the 3 hour trip home. We stopped along the way for chicken nuggets and called it a night. 

The next day we set off again. This time it was to DC. We walked through a couple of museums before breaking out our picnic lunch. We ate on the grass on the Mall. It was a pretty hot and humid day. We decided to walk up to the Washington Monument to see it up close. It was really BIG. Those individual stones are huge! I can't wait until we can get tickets to up to the top. 

It was a fun weekend for sure! Happy Labor Day everyone! School starts tomorrow. Back to the grind. :)