A Trip to the Beach!

All summer long Nina has wanted to go to the beach.  Since she broke her ankle at the end of June and didn’t get the cast off until last week, it felt like nearly her whole summer was taken up with being in a cast.  So, after she got her cast off, I surprised the girls with some news that we were going to take a little beach trip together.  Mark had mini-camp for his boys’ travel team every night after work this past week, so he wasn’t able to go, but I asked my mom if she’d like to come with us, and she did, so we were very excited for a girls’ trip to the beach!

After Nina got her cast off, it was difficult for her to walk at first.  Initially, I was worried that she’d not be able to do much at all at the beach, but each day out of her cast she seemed to improve, and the skin on her leg and foot healed, so by Sunday night I was confident that she’d be ok to at least walk around at the beach pretty well.

So, with everyone excited, we left early on Monday morning to head down to Virginia Beach and arrived there a little after lunch.  The girls couldn’t wait to get down to the ocean, so we literally dropped our bags in the hotel room, threw on bathing suits and went immediately down to the ocean.

The girls had such a fun time!  In our past beach experiences, Lyla used to be the one who wanted to play in the sand, and Nina was always in the water.  This time, Lyla wanted to boogie board most of the time (mixed with some time collecting shells), and Nina still just wanted to play in the waves. Looking at her playing so hard in the waves, you would never have guessed that she had been in a cast just a few days prior.  I was really surprised that she was able to tolerate as much as she did with her leg, but my mom and I both thought it was probably really good therapy for getting mobility back and strengthening the muscles in her leg.

With the girls not wanting to take a break from the ocean at all, I had to make them come out at one point just to rest for about 15 minutes (also so Mouse and I could get a break from getting pounded by the waves), but they were chomping at the bit to get back in the ocean.

The waves were pretty big and the current got stronger as we got later in the day, and Mouse and I were pretty tired from being in the ocean with the girls, so we dragged the girls out of the water around 5:30 to head up to the hotel to shower for dinner.  We found a great little restaurant just a block away from our hotel room, so we walked to dinner, enjoyed a nice meal outside, then walked down the boardwalk for some ice cream.

Lyla hit a fatigue wall midway through her ice cream, so Mouse volunteered to go back to the hotel with her, but Nina wanted to stay out, so she and I kept walking on the boardwalk. Nina has spent all summer reading the Rick Riordan books in the Percy Jackson series all of which center around Greek (and a bit of Roman) mythology.  She read a total of ten of the books plus extra reading about Greek mythology, so when we found a statue of Neptune and fun little outdoor concert next to the boardwalk in Neptune Park, she was so excited!  We hung out at the concert, listened to the music and people watched, then made our way back to the hotel.  According to Mouse, Lyla was asleep within a few minutes of them making it back to the hotel.  Suffice to say, I think they were tired from their day!

By the next morning, they were itching to get immediately down to the beach.  We ate a quick breakfast in our hotel, and they were down on the beach by 8am.  They dug in the sand, found a dead crab and buried it, looked for some shells, then were dying to go back up to the room so they could get their suits on and head back into the water.

 

While back on the hotel balcony getting sunscreen on for the day, we saw a few porpoises swimming by! Thankfully that was the only marine life with dorsal fins that we saw in the water!!!

Day two at the beach was the same as the first.  Lyla boogie boarded, and Nina played hard in the waves. 

After another really full day on the beach, some sunburn and some sunglass drama, we briefly took in a little action from a surfing competition, then got on the road late that evening to head to Hartfield for the night.

Our plan for Day 3 was to head to the river beach this time, so from Hartfield we had an easy drive to the beach at Yorktown.  There were some really nice beach and swimming areas along the York River, and aside from some seaweed issues, the river was a nice low-key beach option for the day.

 

Nina took a little time on the beach to read while Lyla played on the rocks and tried to feed some sea gulls Pirate Booty.

We finished our day in Yorktown with some ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s, a walk on the historic river walk, and then made a run for the car when the rain finally arrived.

We headed back home the next day, but I was so glad that the girls got their “beach fix” in before school starts.  It was great to just get away for a few days together, have some fun, make some memories, and it was even more special to have Mousey along with us!  What a great trip!