Virginia Beach

This summer I knew I wanted to head out to one of the beautiful east coast beaches. We never got around to it last summer in the midst of the planning-for-baby craziness so I made it a priority to go this summer. But with the summer quickly winding down and our free weekends before school starts coming to a close I decided one day we had just up and go. Luckily, our friends the Mancaris are always up for a spontaneous day of fun, so they agreed to trek down to Virginia Beach with us and spend the day by the shore in the sun...

Ok, so our day didn't exactly start out in the sun...just as we were driving into VA Beach it started to sprinkle. No problem, we thought, surely the clouds will pass and it will be a glorious summer day. With Peyton sleeping in her car seat, Robert and Owen set out to stake claim on the perfect beach spot before it got too crowded. They took all of our towels and beach blankets out to the shore, laid them out nicely and started to walk back to the car to tell us where they were going to be. Peyton had just woken up, so I got her all "beach ready" and climbed out of the car. No sooner did I see Robert and Owen walking toward me then it started to just downpour. It rained, and rained, and rained, pretty hard, and steady. We knew there was no hope of salvaging our soaking wet beach gear laying out in the sand, so we just sat in the car scouring every weather app we could find to see if the rain was going to clear up. Thankfully, Tim is apparently an amateur weather man on the side and his predictions were right of the rain moving on after just 20 minutes of heavy down pour. While the clouds passed, we ran into a little beach side cafe for some lunch and just as we finished eating the sun started to peek out. So back out to the sand we went, and thankfully we were able to find a blanket in the back of the car and still had Peyton's pink owl towel to use :)

 

Peyton dipping her feet in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time

 She was not scared at all and was eager to get closer to the water

 Can we please pause for a moment and take note of her super cute water shoes? Now can we have a moment of silence because minutes after these photos were taken one of her super cute water shoes was washed out into the Atlantic, never to be seen again...

 "Hmm, can I crawl on this stuff?"

 Just watching the waves

 Owen came by and showed Peyton how to play in the sand

 And then he was off for a swim in the waves

 Until someone mentioned something about crabs...

 And then he decided he'd just like to play on shore instead. 

 Peyton got adventurous and even stuck her face into the water a few times

 She would have crawled right in if we'd let her

After a full morning in the sun and the water she finally fell asleep in her stroller

 And Owen kept busy working on this-

So we left him there and went to get dinner...

HA! Just kidding. After the babies woke up and Owen was pulled out of his hole we all cleaned up and went in search of dinner. We found this awesome (read:shady looking) Mexican place just off the strip and enjoyed delicious  tacos, margaritas and guacamole before we headed home. What a great day at beach! We can't wait to go back!