Beaching

We took a quick trip to the beach over the weekend to get some summer ocean in.  I am definitely a beach baby.  That's my happy place.  Tom claims the mountains, but once he gets his toes into the sand he's a pretty happy fellow.  The kids, on the other hand, have not been to the ocean in about 5 years.  This is how tiny they were.  Jeff has no memory of it aside from pictures that he's seen.

We arrived at the beach Friday afternoon after leaving early in the morning.  We chose Chincoteague for the weekend since I've never been there, and Tom had only visited once as a child.  As soon as we set foot on the beach, tossed our bag onto the sand Jeff ran straight into the waves.  It was pretty cold, but that didn't bother him a bit.  In 2 minutes he was out past the breakers swimming and splashing and trying to ride the waves back in.  Erin was a little more cautious, but got herself out into the waves catching the surf with her daddy.

The first of the waves

Castle construction

He looks so tiny, and had so much fun

They were posing for the picture when a huge wave crashed on them!

We left the beach just about sunset, drove back over the barrier island and found some dinner.  We hit up a local BBQ hangout.  Order your food, hang out and play "beach" games while you wait.  Find either a giant checker board to sit and eat at or stand at the tiki bar.  Just make sure to bring your bug spray.  Apparently the Chincoteague mosquitoes are nothing less than blood thirsty.

Saturday morning we crashed the beach again.  Tom led us up the shore a bit to get away from the crowds.  Of course both kids whined and complained that we were walking to the moon and they just wanted to get into the water.  This only makes dad walk a little longer.  The day was spent building sand castles, riding the waves, walking for shells etc...  The shelling was definitely my highlight.  I took Erin with me, and that is for it's very own blog post.  After 40 minutes wandering up the shore I had to make her turn back for the boys.

Erin catching a wave

Showing off a small portion of her sea shells

We were rushed off the beach late afternoon by an incoming storm.  We stopped at the island visitor center to wait out the storm.  Afterwards we discussed walking to the lighthouse.  We coated up in Off and started for the lighthouse.  We missed the parking lot for the path to the lighthouse but found another island path.  We made it about 1/4 mile before turning back.  Swarms of mosquitoes had some of us choking on bugs.  We headed to an all you can eat seafood place where Erin put away 3 full snow crab clusters, doing all the work on her own.  Jeff enjoyed his own crab AND shrimp.  We finished our evening with some miniature golf.

Sunday morning we found our way to the beach again.  We took a few minutes before checking out from our Inn to do a little photo shoot of the kids on the dock of the channel.  Sunday was the best beach day by far.  We were a little later arriving and had to sit back further from the surf but still had a fantastic spot.  Jeff quickly made friends with a young girl his age.  They built a huge sand castle, rode some waves (she let Jeff use one of their extra boogie boards) and splashed around.  You would have thought they had known each other forever.  It was so wonderful to watch the kids just relax and enjoy themselves.  No one wanted to leave, but work was calling and a long drive back home was in the way.

A moment on the dock

Toes wet, bottom not.

I got this!

No parking bird!

Awesome sculpture made by the family next to us

Jeff and Erin with their new friend

Collecting rocks and shells

We loaded up and headed off the island back to the mountains.  About 6 hours later we pulled into the driveway 6 miles from the base of the mountains.  And no one can wait until next year to go back.

Bye Bye