The Trip To Virginia Beach

Here are some pictures of our trip- after the pictures are new videos of our last day on vacation

Here is a very nice rest stop on the way:

The kids acting crazy

Me with the kids

On the Beach

Vacation- Prior to one of our dinners

Vacation pics

Our best meal in Virginia Beach by far- it was awesome

Vacation Pics

Vacation Pics- King Neptune

This huge statue of King Neptune was on the boardwalk-- very cool

Vacation Pics-Aquarium

This was the nature trail at the Virginia Beach Aquarium - awesome day

Vacation Pictures

One of our dinners

Virginia Beach Day 7 and 8

Our last day in Virginia Beach, some scenes

We went to a less crazy beach and found a ton of dead horseshoe crabs--

Luke feeding sea gulls, walking, and making a sandcastle with his mom

There is a Naval Air Station in Virginia beach that has fighter jets. There are seventeen stright fighters squadrons of F18 hornets and F18 super hornets housed here. All vacation we seen and heard them flying overhead and I thought they were very cool. There is an observation parking area near the NAS and we parked there to watch the jets take off and land. Here is one flight over our head of 2 jets and the next video is Luke describing them.

While we were on the beach we also saw quite a few military helicopters. It seemed like more of the fighter jets were from Monday-Wednesday. Toward the end of the week less of the jets were flying overhead.

Adam, Justin and Luke in the water- one of the last times in the ocean

The last dinner in Virginia Beach (Pizza):

Saying goodnight in the condo for the last time:

Leaving the condo in the morning:

The last meal in Virginia Beach- Breakfast at McDonalds

And finally a glimpse in the Highlander on the drive back to Canonsburg-Luke LOVED being snuggled in all those pillows.

All vacation the weather was perfect, the ocean water was perfectly warm, the condo was excellent, a very pleasant walk to the beach. All the food, except at that damn HORRILBE captain John's (which had terrible reviews everywhere on the internet- I wish we would have looked at that before we went), was delicious. It was a great vacation. Now a day of rest on Sunday and back to work tomorrow.

Virginia Beach Day 7

We had breakfast at IHOP- the kids LOVE IHOP

Luke getting sunscreen, that's Justin's back in the ocean shot- he's just getting in with his boogie board

Luke digging in the sand before going in

Luke and the waves- riding them in and wiping out on them

Adam and Justin on their boogie board

After one of the worst dinners yesterday, we had an awesome Italian dinner today-- very expensive, of course, but worth every penny

Virginia Beach Day 6

It's 10:00 pm. I've got videos to upload from my camera to the computer, then upload them to this blog, but I'm pooped. I'm going to relax now and put them up tomorrow, although tomorrow we're getting up extra early (I think) to go to a further part of the ocean without the waves to see if we can find cool stuff.

In the meantime, I forgot to mention we all saw skates:

and stingrays:

swimming in the shallow waters in the ocean. Skates have a barb in their tail that they whip in the skin of people that agitate them (or step on them). The barb is painful but not poisonous, the stingrays, on the other hand, have the same mechanism for defense but their barb is bathed in venom, not enough to kill, but very very painful. We saw them at the quieter beach -they were probably there because there were less people, at the busy beach I imagine the skates and stingrays are shooed away.

I asked the life guard about them and he did tell me they're out there and if we get hurt by one to let him know. No one this season has been stung, thank God.

These are the same animals that you saw the kids trying to pet at the aquarium yesterday, so these animals are not vicious, but they don't want to be stepped on!

I'll put the videos from day 6 up shortly.

Virginia Beach Day 5

The start of day 5- we decided to go to a quieter beach which we found- here is the start to the day around 9:30 am-think you can guess what all 3 were doing early in the am????

Unfortunately I forgot to take the camera to the new beach- nothing new happened so nothing was missed. More of huge waves and brave Luke and Adam and Justin having fun at the beach. We stayed there for 5 hours then came home and relaxed.

Here we are driving to the boardwalk and Luke being very bad-- we think he is very sleep deprived, he was bad in car, but it was a cute bad (kinda)

Here was dinner on day 5- it was HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE buffet, horrible desserts, horrible looking restaurant even though it was right on the strip- just bad bad bad, and what really added insult to injury was it was HORRIBLY expensive. As we were leaving, a black family were coming in and saw Amy's face and asked how it was- I told them to run far far away-- about 20 minutes later we saw them carrying out a pizza box and I told them they just saved $75. They thanked us and said- God Bless You!...Oh, did I say it was HORRIBLE????

This is the end of day 5. We let the kids by souvenirs and here is a recap of them telling you what they bought. It was another great day of vacation.

It's 10:45 pm now on Wednesday. We're going to be going to bed soon and tomorrow we're going to another quieter beach early in the morning to see if we can find better shells, crabs, and other things while the tide is still out. As usual vacation is going way too fast.

Virginia Beach Day 4

We went to the Virginia Beach Aquarium today instead of going to the beach. It was huge and pretty expensive - $87.00 to see fish!. There's a big inside section, then a nature trail to another section. By the end of the aquarium Luke was beat...he was very tired.

The first exhibit were turtles:

This was a volcano exhibit- it was pretty cool

Fish- here's a huge tank with some fish:

Binoculars-Justin looking through them on the nature trail and Adam being a bit bad

When you look over the bridges on the nature trail you see thousands and thousands of fiddler crabs

Looking over one of the bridges was this Kiwi bird-- he was just standing still, then he started eating the crabs--- you'd see a bunch of crabs, the the bird would run and all the crabs would scatter- we saw this bird pick off quite a few live crabs.

You don't even want to know how expensive lunch was here. I think I'm going to open an aquarium in Virginia Beach. The food was done by my old company Sodexho

Walking back on the nature trail to the main aquarium Luke wasn't answering Amy, so she started to not answer him-- this is a little shakey because I was walking and filming--

One of the exhibits was a tank that you can touch swimming sting rays- Luke got to touch one but wanted to touch more and got SO mad when he couldn't touch any more- here's 2 videos

After a lot of the day at the aquarium, we all went back to the condo- Amy and I took a nap- the kids watched tv then we went back out to walk the board walk and have dinner- here's King Neptune as viewed by the parking garage we were in:

Another very expensive meal: Adam had spicey wings, Justin had a meatball sub, Luke had spaghetti, Amy had an Italian sub and I had fettuccine alfredo with grilled chicken

Finally the end of the day- all of us getting back to our condo dead tired-

It's now Wednesday, we were going to get up early to go to some secluded beach to find shells but Amy and I slept in a bit. It's now 9:27 and we still have to eat, then we'll head out.

Virginia Beach Day 3

Awesome day at the beach- the waves were HUGE and we loved it. Luke never put his head under water in the past, today when a big wave hit, he would go under and let the wave take him to the shore! Perfect hot sunny day- we were at the beach for over 4 hours...

He loved that boogie board

We were at the beach a very long time- Adam started to get shakey - he was very hungry and only ate sugary cereal in the morning plus spent the whole time in the big waves- so we just ate at Subway after--- here it is

I'm not typically a fan of "buffets" but we found this one- Captain George's and it really was great. Adam spotted the topless mermaid on the stained glass ceiling and pointed it out to me so I thought I'd start with that in this dinner video- On my plate are crayfish that I refer to as "my little friends." The place was HUGE and the food was very good and the desserts were very good too-- for all 5 of us it was about $125- though- doesn't matter, with the clown that is obama we'll all be broke before long anyway- might as well spend it all!!!

It's now Monday at 8:58 pm and we're all bushed. Luke is in bed, Amy is watching O'Reiley if you can believe it- I can here it here from the kitchen, and we're not sure what we're doing tomorrow- beach again? Bush Gardens? Aquarium? Tour an old Battleship? I don't know. One thing I want to do is go to a quieter beach that's a bit secluded and look for shells- Luke really wants to to that. We'll see. In the meantime, 1 official day of vacation is burned :-(.

Virginia Beach Day 2

I had a bunch of videos on my camera-a lot of really good videos, but when I went to upload them there were only 2 on the memory card- don't know why, dammit. Here are the only 2 from yesterday

Here's the start of day 2- Amy making eggs:

Here is one at the beach-- the waves were huge and it was fun. It was hot and humid out and the water was pretty warm.

UPDATE-- I found the other videos!

The waves were huge at the beach-- Adam, Justin, and Luke LOVED the big waves-- here's Luke in a wave:

Here's Adam riding a wave:

We had Lunch at "Planet Pizza"- in the movie Toy Story there's a "Pizza Planet" and this place was kind of a take off on that:

And here's dinner:

After dinner we went for a walk on the boardwalk and had ice cream (Luke chose to have a Kryspy Kreme donut):

And finally there were fireworks on the beach which was nice--- day 2 was a great day!

Luke's Birthday

Happy Birthday Luke- We love you!!!

This is between the upcoming vacation video's because I had it hanging around on the same card--the posts above this will be more of our Virginia Beach Vacation.

Virginia Beach!!!! Day 1

Our 2011 vacation-- Virginia Beach, Day 1

Getting ready to head out:

This is a beautiful rest stop in Maryland, we also have some pictures here:

A glimpse of the ride over:

Now arriving at our condo (part 1 and 2):

The kids first view of the ocean (parts 1 and 2)

Our first meal- I had wings and fries, Amy had a gyro and fries, Justin had a burger and fries, Luke had chicken nuggets and fries, and Adam had fried shrimp (no fries)-- It's 10:05 pm and now Adam and Justin are having cereal- just so you know:

Garden Update

Here's the garden now, around July 25th-- the tomatoes look very good, zucchini are dying, cukes are dying, peppers look good and herbs look good.