Beach Trip #2!

Last summer my family and I visited Kure Beach, NC. On the LONG trip back to Maryland, I remember Eric and I talking about the trip and how it could be our last vacation for awhile...especially with Samuel's arrival right around the corner. We knew that having a baby would be a challenge, and as much as Eric and I LOVE to travel we both came to grips with the fact that vacations might be a thing of the past for us...

Now, fast forward a year...WOW...we just got back from our second trip to Virginia Beach this year!!!! My soon-to-be Sister-In-Law is renting an apartment literally 4 houses back from the beach!!! When an open invitation was made for us to visit...well, we couldn't help but jump on it! My parents and brother would be visiting, we have been doing a lot of remodeling on our house, and we were just ready for a little break. So we packed a few things and made the trek to the beach!

The ride down and back was tough, but Samuel did a good job. He just needs to stop and stretch every 2 hours. Otherwise he CRIES...A LOT! So we made some interesting stops...including a stop at an over sized roller skate.




And every time we stopped, Samuel LOVED LOVED LOVED to pretend to drive the car on daddy's lap. He figured out how to turn the wipers on, the signal on, and pretended to honk the horn! He is so funny :0)



We had a blast during the long weekend! We spent Friday visiting the Neptune Festival. The Neptune Festival is Virginia Beach's annual sand sculpting contest. It was AMAZING. The sculptors were from all over the world. My favorite won for solo sculpting!





Samuel, Eric and I enjoyed watching the sculptors work! They are so talented! It was so hot while we were at the beach too, I don't know how they were able to sculpt in the heat and keep their designs together. We enjoyed lunch and ice cream on the board walk.

Friday evening my family arrived. Samuel was the center of attention...as usual!!! Everyone was impressed with all of his new tricks. He crawled all over Mandy's apartment, chasing a beach ball we picked up for him at the festival. He really warmed up well to everyone! My mom even watched him one night so we could go out and enjoy some fun and festivities!






We also were able to enjoy some time on the beach! Mandy lives on the upper part of Virginia Beach, so the beach was practically empty! And the weather was perfect!! It was fantastic!!! Samuel loved playing in the sand, watching the waves, and waving at the seagulls. His favorite though was napping on the beach.





There was a beautiful regatta on Saturday morning and we saw tons of sailboats passing by. And to add to the already beautiful day, the dolphins were out in full force and were playing right along the shore line! They were so close! It was like a postcard!




We finished off the weekend by visiting Cape Henry lighthouse at Fort Story. We loved the base so much, we decided to vacation there next summer and made reservations for a log cabin! Fort Story is a very nice military base with swimming pools, snack bars, lots of cabins and playgrounds, and has full access to private beaches and fishing areas!





Of course, after all the amazing activities we did and amazing things we saw you wouldn't think the weekend could get any better...but it did! On Saturday evening, while sitting on the beach waiting for the moon to rise, my brother asked Eric to be a groomsman in his wedding and asked my dad to be his best man! Samuel is one of their ring bearers. I'm so proud of all my guys! It was a fantastic and wonderful weekend. It was hard to return to Maryland, but we had to. Eric returned to work, Samuel and I returned to our normal activities and now we are just watching Maryland become beautiful in this autumn weather!