Vacation I

Here's one of the long over due posts. At the very end of June (spilling over into July), we went on our first trip to the beach as a family. We joined the rest of the DeRousie clan for a week at Virginia Beach. It was Hayden and Eliza's first trip to the beach and they had a lot of fun. Both of them took to the ocean and sand with such gusto that it made their beach-loving (some might say obsessed) mom proud.

Since this post is so overdue, I'll just post pictures with some commentary. First I'll stick to pictures of the beach and our little family. Next post (Vacation II), I'll show you all the fun we had with the DeRousie side of the family.

Here's Hayden (and Eliza) being introduced to the ocean. Since the ocean is one of my favorite things, there was a formal introduction. "Toes meet ocean, ocean meet Hayden's toes." It was love at first sight.

Not only did Hayden love the ocean (when asked do you want to go the pool or ocean, she picked ocean), but she picked up the technique of rinsing your feet off in a flash!
We were lucky enough to stay in an ocean front hotel. You can see it behind me and Eliza as we pose in front of the famous Virginia Beach beachball statue. We did not have ocean front rooms, but that didn't stop Eliza from having a great time looking out the window. Towards the end of our stay, Jason and I ventured up to the exercise room at the top of the building (19 or 20 floors) to check out the view.



We did have a great time, and I learned a lot about what makes a good family vacation with small kids. Having a pool, as well as the ocean, to play in was terrific. Both kids had a great time in the pool. But I'm not sure I'd recommend a beach vacation with a crawling baby. Eliza had fun in the sand but boy was it hard to keep an eye on her! She grabbed the sand and wanted to eat it. And with her big sun hat on, it was hard to see what she was up to. But we managed, and everyone had fun.

Can't you just hear her making happy screeching noises?!

(yes, Eliza is eating my finger while playing in the waves.)

Surveying the waves with Daddy. She even went out past the waves with us on a calm day.

We had a very nice trip but we were very happy to reach Pennsylvania on the way home. The rest area we stopped in just inside the PA line had snacks - cookies and lemonade! And Hayden helped us capture the perfect sign for the end of our trip. We were smiling to be in Pennsylvania...

.....but in case you didn't already know - We are moving to North Carolina! More details later, but we move in a couple weeks so Jason can start a new job. That's what's been keeping me so busy! Good thing we already had our vacation this summer!