Beach Vacation #2! (aka A LONG Post w/ TONS of pics!)

During the week of July 10th-17th, we joined my family for our annual vacation at Virginia Beach. As usual, the week was filled with many fun new memories and adventures! Here's how the week played-out...

We arrived to our timeshare Saturday evening and got settled-in for the week. Candy spent the week hanging-out with the other dogs at my parent's house. Eli absolutely LOVED having Candy travel in the seat right next to him on our drive. He would frequently squeal with delight when her tail would swat him or his carseat toys. It was hilarious!

On Sunday, we hung-out with our good family friends, Elizabeth, Rachel (and her sweet 1 1/2-year-old son Carter), and their mom (my "Aunt" Kim). The boys loved playing with each others' sand toys while the grown-ups visited for a while. We had a LOT of catching-up to do! Eli also sat for a little while at the water's edge and had a great time splashing in the little waves that would wash up around him.




Later that evening, the adults in our group went for our traditional seafood dinner at Rockafeller's. We usually go there later in the week, but unfortunately my sister was leaving to go back to work on Monday. So, the kiddos stayed back at the condos with my cousins who had come out to baby-sit. We got a great table overlooking the water on their upper-deck porch right at sunset. It was beautiful and the food and company was excellent! My family loves us some good seafood!












On Monday, Mark, Eli, and I were all greased-up and ready to go out to the beach after lunchtime. Unfortunately, right before we left I noticed Elijah felt a little warm and after a temp-check realized he was running a fever of 102. So, we nixed our plans for the beach and spent most of the rest of the day just hanging-out with family in our condos.

Eli's fever continued through most of Tuesday, so again, we missed-out on the beach. However, by this time, we had decided that his elevated temperature was probably due to some nasty teething since he didn't have any other symptoms of sickness. (Sure enough, we saw later that week that he was indeed working on the teeth on either side of his top front teeth!) We did end up going out to catch a late afternoon showing of Toy Story 3 (which is SO good!) with the whole family. This was actually Eli's first official movie at a theater...and probably his last for a few years! He made it through about the first 20 minutes but then decided that he was too tired and fussy to continue watching. Thankfully, Grandma was there to save the day and she entertained him for the remainder of the movie...causing her to miss most of it. Boo! However, Eli did finally decide to fall asleep in the final 10 minutes! What a turkey!

On Wednesday, Mark spent the morning golfing with my brother, so Eli and I took it easy with the rest of the family. (His fever finally broke the night before.) We had some crazy thunderstorms that afternoon, so our attempt to hit the beach again was out. We did enjoy some more quality family hang-out time though!

My parents graciously offered us the chance to have a date during our vacation week, so we decided to celebrate our belated 5th wedding anniversary from the previous Friday. We ate some awesome Mexican food at one our favorite local places, Plaza Azteca. After that, we played a round of mini-golf at Jungle Golf and actually TIED! Usually Mark slaughters me when we play, but I had to bust out my skills that night. You know I kept that scorecard too! It was a great night!





By the time Thursday rolled around, we were so beyond ready to get some good beach time in! But first, Mark, Eli, our nephew Jacob, and I spent the morning exploring the local aquarium. Jakes was so excited to see the shark exhibit, we had to go twice while we were there! We had a great time with the boys, seeing their reactions to all of the fish and animals.








After a quick stop for some Slurpees (another Eli first), we spent the afternoon soaking up some rays and swimming in the ocean. Eli loved swimming in the ocean with his daddy and playing in the sand with his cousins! Later that evening, we went to see the local Triple A baseball team, the Tides, play a game in Norfolk. (They are actually the farm team for the Orioles, so that is why Eli was all decked out in his black and orange.) This was Eli's first baseball experience and he had a great time...even though he did sleep through part of it! He even got to meet the team's mascot, Rip-Tide! After the game, we decided to hit up Doumar's for some icecream. By the time we got back to the condo, Eli was absolutely wired and didn't fall asleep until 1 A.M.!












Friday was our last full day of vacation, so we spent it as a family at the beach. The water was a bit colder, but Eli got to play in his own private little sand-pool dug by his daddy. He just loved playing in there with his twin cousins, Caleb and Rebekah. We finished-up our beach time with lots of fun mini-photo shoots and headed back to the condos to get ready for our traditional dinner at Pizza Planet (aka Planet Pizza). As cheesy as the name sounds and the place looks, we always get some great pizza there. This year did not disappoint!
















On Saturday morning, everyone packed-up and headed back home. I am always sad to see our beach week end. We had such a wonderful week vacationing as a family of 3 this year and look forward to making even more new memories with Eli next year too! We can't wait! (and hopefully Aunt Erin, Aunt Brittney, and Uncle Matt will be able to join us for the whole week next time...it just wasn't the same without them...Eli told me so!)