father's day

Well, hello there!

Another adventurous day for the books. We thought we'd hit VA Beach for Father's Day. It's one of Juan Pablo's favorite places. But we hadn't checked the weather first.

Heading over, the skies looked pretty ominous. I pulled out his iphone about 20 minutes away to see what the weather said...storms starting at 1pm.... and it was noon.

I say all this just to show that you should never let the weather report deter you.

It was actually sunny when we got there. A little windy though...our two umbrellas immediately flipped inside out then started blowing away down the beach and sent people screaming. We quickly recovered them and decided it wasn't that sunny.


The sand man dove right in....with last years close talking to the sand and some plain ol' wallowing.


Give the boy a bucket, and he's happy.


Give this boy a boogie board and a wave...and well....he's happy, too.


There was a strange and very steep hill down to the surf this year...I'm not sure if 'they' made it like that, or if the ocean did. But it made for some interesting photos of Diego looking like he was buried in sand.


And I made sure to have JP get some pics of me this time. Nothing like seeing yourself in a bathing suit to rev up the gym routine...I've been working out hard, but still had to crop it.


I had fun catching some waves, too. That just never gets old.


Here's Diego pushing me away when I tried to get a nice shot of us.


This cool boat was riding by, and I managed to catch this shot of Isabela swimming out to it...it looks like it's just them in the ocean.


Diego was mesmerized by the aviones...he rarely lets one fly by without pointing and saying, "Avión!" Maybe he'll be a pilot one day.



So the other thing we forgot was quarters...for the meter. So when our two hours were up, it just so happened that the skies clouded over and the wind picked up even more. Yes, a storm was definitely coming.

But I came across a review of the nearby park, Mount Trashmore, when I was worrying about the weather, and we decided to stop by on our way home.

It's a giant hill....that used to be a landfill. Steep going up....


....and coming down.


With a great view around it....there was a cute carnival that we kept saying NO to.


And wide open spaces to run around in....


...and, of course, a giant hill to roll down.


Diego's a mama's boy right now...so he didn't make the father's day picture.


Some loud clanging attracts us to the other side of the hill...and what should we see??? but some knights sword fighting in full body armor!


So we head over...and they invite us to come and try out some stuff. They were friendly knights, the round table sort, and told us all about what they were doing.


The day just keeps getting better and better.

Because then, we look over in the distance, at the most amazing playground we've ever seen.
It's huge.
It's on spongy foam.
It's got a million things to climb on.

So while we were impressed with the plain, giant hill when we got there, and surprised by the fighting knights below.....we're now speechless at how we just happen upon the coolest things.




This little sprite was hard to keep track of. Running top speed all over the place.


And he got a little help from sis' on the harder parts.


Oh, yeah....and remember that storm I was talking about? It finally hit. And we had a long trek back to the car. We were soaked, and loving it!! It turned out the storm was the coolest part of the day.

sand and feathers

We made another trip down 64 to Atlantic Avenue last week. This time, we packed ahead and left early. We were there by 10 am and it was crowded. It seems like the rest of the world has finally discovered our little secret.


But I like it crowded. This beach is huge and there is plenty of room for everyone. Plus, other people share their beach toys, smile at my baby, speak other languages, and build really cool things in the sand.


Daddy got right to work on the tide pool for Diego. Everyone knows the routine now. Diego waits on the edge of the hole, dangling his feet, watching it get larger and larger.


I found this super huge feather while following Diego on one of his many ambling strolls, weaving through towels and chairs, so we planted it at our sand hole. It actually came in handy when we were out in the water....all the colorful umbrellas just merge into one big rainbow blur, so we looked for the big hole with the feather to find out where we were.


Attack of the sand monster again. The car still hasn't fully recovered.


This boy will NOT nap at the beach. (And I don't blame him!) The more tired he gets, the less afraid of the waves he is. When we've been there for hours, he starts gazing into the ocean and runs straight for it.


He's also a beach collector. Picking up anything that looks interesting. He'd be good with one of those metal detectors I think.



Here's one of those cool sand holes a neighboring family built. When they left, it was all ours! Tunnels and all.



We saw dolphins again...Juan Pablo got a couple of great pictures of them. You can click it to enlarge it. Joaquin was going to swim out to them, but I convinced him it was a lot farther than it looked.


So here's how we do it. We get a great metered spot close to the boardwalk. This was the best spot yet. Then we let the kids fight over who's going to put the money in. Daddy won. Lunch and snacks are in the cooler. We bring towels, but they're not much use, so I'm going to suggest no towels next time. For a bathroom, there's the ocean, and whichever restaurant we go to for dinner.


To change out of our bathing suits, we used a fairly large private dressing room...our car. I took this neat shot while they were fighting over the meter.


And the bikes. We finally slapped down the $20 to do the family bike.


Those things are hard to stop. (So don't stand in the middle of the bike path.) And hard to get going. Poor Juan Pablo was drenched with sweat. He had to do two laps, since Joaquin's shoe fell off by the pier without anyone noticing. How does that happen? I ended up holding Diego while pedaling, and he fell asleep in my arms. I was in heaven. Beautiful beach scenery, wind in my hair, salt in my mouth, and a precious angel asleep in my arms.


We know it's almost time to leave the beach when the waves fill up our little pool.


And I see our feather has already been snatched up by another lucky family.