Ten Ten

We had a chance to slip off to Virginia Beach for 1 night, so we jumped at the chance to use Daddy's free conference hotel room.

I packed lightly and we hit the beach hard.

I snapped photos:

My daughter really enjoyed the waves (when did she stop being the toddler afraid of waves bigger than her feet?):

Lots of sand castles and pit digging occurred:

Here's the other boogie boarder:

After our "relaxing" mini vacation, I drive home with my daughter only to get a call from my husband AFTER I passed through the tunnel that I had his car keys and had to turn around and go BACK through the tunnel. On a Friday afternoon. After at least a half-hour of stop-and-go congestion on the way back, I see this sign:

Glad some one's on top of the situation! In case you're wondering, it took almost 2 1/2 hours to drive from the beach through the tunnel twice and back to the beach. Longer than it "should" take to get home. But all ended well and we got home the long, scenic way.

I'm not sure that you get to call it a vacation when you spend more time in the car than on the sand...

Labels: kids, virginia beach

My son and husband entered to run the 8K and half-marathon at Virginia Beach this weekend. After registering, we realized that they were on separate days, so that meant two nights in Virginia Beach. It turned into a fun family weekend away. A little odd to be there not in the summer. It was pretty cold (30-35) in the mornings, but aren't beaches always pretty?

Here's the scene from our room on Saturday morning while my son got dressed to run his first 8K:

We were SO close to everything! Standing on our balcony we could see the finish line and the celebration tent:

My son was very relaxed before the race, which was good. However, when I saw this before the first mile, I thought maybe he's TOO relaxed (that's him in the green on the left):

But boy, howdy, did he look good in the lead pack:

Oh wait - that's someone else's kid.

But he finished - with a time of 44:00. He was hoping for 40:00, but he still finished something like 1,300th out of 7,000 runners.

This was the scene on the course about a half hour after he finished. Lots of folks still going strong:

We were high-tailing it over to Pocahontas Pancakes, for a much-deserved breakfast. After breakfast, we swam in the pool (kids), knitted (me), and hit a fun arcade filled with retro games like all of the Pac-Mans, Frogger, Galaga, and Centipede. And ka-pow and skee-ball. I can honestly say I can't tell who had more fun, the kids or the adults!

Here my daughter is cashing in her tickets:

We also walked around the shops. My sneaky goal was to get my daughter interested in hermit crabs again as a bribe to keep her room clean. The plan back fired when she showed no interest in them. (note to self #1: bribes have never worked on your kids).

My darling husband found this plaque:

Not sure why he was showing it to me... (note #2 to self: if others in your group are running lots, you can't eat like you've been running, too).

We also took in sights on the beach:

HOW many runners are in this thing?

Then it was early to bed to get ready for Dad's race on Sunday. He was out the door at 6 and my daughter was dragged out of her coma at 7:45, so we missed the start. But we were there at the finish line!

Way to go, Daddy!

He broke his personal record/goal of a sub-2 hour 1/2 marathon and came in at 1:55. Not so bad for a fellow celebrating yet another birthday this week. So it was off to the celebration tent, with beer tickets in hand: