The girls and I just got back from a week away - getting some fun in before it gets much closer to the end of summer. It was exactly this time last year that Nina got her cast off. After breaking her ankle and being in a cast for six weeks, the thing she really wanted to do before school started was go to the beach. It was a last minute trip because we weren’t even sure that she would be keeping the cast off, so we found a hotel down in VA Beach and asked my mom to come along with us as Mark had training camp for the soccer team he coached all that week. Since we had such a fun time, we planned to do it again this year. This time we went for a week, and this time thankfully we weren’t coming off Nina having been in a cast for the prior six weeks!
Without too much convincing, Mousey agreed to come with us, so we picked her up on our way out. We actually met her in Warrenton where she was finishing a hair appointment, so Poppy treated the girls to their favorite Carousel ice cream while Mousey finished her appointment.
Immediately upon getting to Hartfield, it was all about paddle boarding. The girls had tried it out a little bit at the end of our last trip in Hartfield. However, Nina hadn’t tried it yet standing, and Lyla had only a little time to try it out. Right after we arrived at Hatfield, we got the paddle boards out and the girls got acquainted. 
The next morning we got ready to head off to Busch Gardens for the day. Since it’s just under an hour to get from Hartfield to Busch Gardens, we try to go a few times during the summer while we’re there. Lyla has grown so much over the summer that the handful of rides that she wasn’t able to ride the last time we were there at the end of March, she easily passed for this time. Without Mark there (who loves roller coasters a lot more than I do), I told them they had to go easy on their mom who gets kinda green after riding too many big coasters back to back, but they did a very good job of wearing me out. Nina will ride coasters with the best of them. She can’t get enough of them. Lyla has been a little more hesitant in the past, but she definitely wasn’t this time. She even rode one of Nina’s favorites, the Griffon, and loved it so much she wanted to ride it multiple times…insert a very sarcastic “yea!!!!” from mom. They also took over the role of park navigators (also usually Mark’s responsibility) as my map skills may or may not have been called into question in the past.
We rode a lot of rides, then rode a lot more rides, then thankfully took a break to see our favorite show at the park, Pet Shenanigans. Nina actually got called on during the show to submit a math problem to the parrot, then the kids got to meet one of the stars of the Pet Shenanigans show afterwards. It’s always a fun and enertaining show! Lyla, our horse lover, also really wanted to make sure we visited the Clydesdales.
Initally, I thought I would take them to Busch Gardens on Thursday, then we would go to Water Country on Friday, but after a long day at Busch Gardens, we decided to skip going to Water Country the next day. I was more than happy with the prospect of staying at Hatfield and doing fun things there than heading to another amusement park. We had an adventurous day on the river. The girls started out paddle boarding again, then we put them in the kayaks, and Mouse and I got on the paddle boards, we went a little farther out in the river than the girls have gone in the past. The little bit of current and wind made for some hard work for the girls in the kayaks, but Mouse and I tried to make them embrace a little of their "inner pioneer girl” to row hard enough to make it back. They made it back, refueled, and went back out on the paddle boards.
Things definitely did a turn to the more silly as Lyla in particular got very comfortable goofing around on the paddle board. One minute she’d be laying down on the board, the next minute she’d be shaking her bottom, and the next minute she’d be trying to jump on the board, then she traded in her paddle for the kayak oar...
…then she finally got what was coming to her…we all had a good laugh!
It didn’t take long before Lyla wanted to start jumping off the paddle board for fun, then Mousey, Nina, and I joined in, and we were all soaked and dirty but we had fun.
After getting much needed showers, we drove to Urbanna for dinner, putt putt, and ice cream. It was a fun day 2!!
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