Growing up in Virginia, going to the beach was sort of a summer, family tradition. When I moved to Wisconsin at 14, getting to the beach became pretty hard and I really missed it! Three years ago, we had a great beach trip to Nags Head, NC, with my parents and my sister’s family. There were six adults and six kids (my sister’s 4 and my 2 at the time) and we rented a cabin right on the beach for 5 days. Then we moved to Texas. When we got back to Virginia, we had planned another week long trip to Nags Head last summer, but then found out we planned it for the same week Ben was starting kindergarten.
So finally, after three years, we planned and made a short trip to the beach. Ben has been begging us every year and both Holly and I really wanted to make it happen this summer. The funny thing, we had no clue when it would work out. We decided to change some plans and book three days and two nights at Virginia Beach.
I was a bit worried I admit. With my three kids and my sister with her four kids, I imagined us going crazy trying to keep tabs on them on a packed beach. My childhood memories of VA Beach were spending five minutes just trying to find an empty space to lie our beach towels. Luckily, I booked a hotel on 57th Ave, far north of the boardwalk and the crowds.
We stayed at the Wyndam Resort. It wasn’t fancy or expensive so I won’t complain about the fact that it took them two hours to replace our towels after they took our dirties. What mattered was that it was right on the beach and it had a pool.
When we pulled onto Atlantic Blvd, it was 101 degrees, sunny and humid. The water was perfect though. I’m so used to kringing when I first hit the water but that first day, it was definitely not frigid but still cool enough for me to spend 4 hours in 100 degree weather without being hot! Unfortunately, I haven’t had enough sun this summer to get my tan on… I was pretty burnt!
We spent a few hours on the beach and an hour or so at the pool each day. We also made a trip toward the boardwalk to do a bit of beach shopping and get the kids ice cream. I’m pretty impressed by how clean and fun VA Beach is now compared to when I was a kid. We didn’t hit up the boardwalk, but I saw they had a beautiful new, handicap accessible playground at the southern end of the boardwalk. There were also a bunch of vendors on the boardwalk that we missed unfortunately. Maybe next time! We ended our second night with a 9pm showing of Alice in Wonderland at our hotel’s outdoor veranda.
Our last morning, we were pretty beat and I was so burnt I couldn’t imagine going in the water and getting sand on me. We let the kids play in the edge of the water and build a sand castle. Then we took them out to the Virginia Aquarium. I’ve been to a few aquariums now (Baltimore, Monterey, Outer Banks, Mall of America if that counts) and have decided that I really like them. Anna also really loved it. She was so excited to see the alligators, crocodiles and sharks. Ben, on the other hand, loved it because there were tons of rooms with lots of buttons and switches. I definitely recommend a visit if you need some time off the beach. It was Saturday though so it was fairly crowded, but we still got to see everything pretty well!
I’ve got a few select pictures posted to Flickr (see slideshow below) and Facebook. If you are on my Google contact list and you have a Google account (and you’re logged in), you can view the full collection on my Picasa site.
In these photos:
- Lewis and Holly
- Ben
- Anna
- Gwen
- Lewis’ sister Lisa
- Kiya
- Madi
- Samantha
- Jack
