Sweet Virginia Vacation

Ahh, the beach. Seems like everyone in the world should go to the ocean once a year. It's good for the soul, and not too bad on the feet either. Ours was a long time in coming...last year we had plans to go and canceled at the last minute when our car broke down and needed an expensive repair. This year, everything lined up. My sister and brother in law found some rustic cabins in First Landing State Park, Virginia Beach. There were about 18 miles of hiking/biking/running trails throughout the park. Seth called it a runner's paradise. (Yes, except for those mornings when it felt like 85 degrees by 7:30am. Nothing like working up a good sweat!) We were a hop, skip, and a jump from the Chesapeake Bay with its calmer waves and a short drive from the Atlantic shore, including a busy boardwalk. It seemed like we got the best of all worlds. We even found a farmer's market and Trader Joe's to do our grocery shopping for the week! Anyhow, my sister's family stayed in one cabin, and we stayed in the other with my mom (God bless her...one bathroom for all of us, and she shared a room with Myles). We spent a full week there, hitting the beach almost every day, taking ample time to run, bike, and hike, walking the board walk at night, cooking tasty meals that almost always included a happy hour (courtesy of Seth). The photo of Finn is the kids' version...virgin coladas. Seth and I had a date night and ate at a local tapas restaurant just across the street from the beach. The food was outstanding. We saw dolphins, both while on a boat tour with the kids and from the shore of the Atlantic, when they were close enough to Seth and Brian for them to swim out to meet them.

Myles is leaping and bounding ahead these days. He has a voracious appetite for reading, and will sit alone with books for long periods, "reading" to himself or to others. He and cousin Kaleb learned to jump waves in the ocean, and on the last day, Myles started trying to surf using this cheap yellow foam board we got for him. He climbed up to the top of a light house with us, and really enjoyed just about every minute of this vacation, especially being with cousin Kaleb and Grandma. Grandma taught him some card games like "swwaap the Jack," and he couldn't get enough.

It's amazing what vacation can do. We came back more centered, grateful, and connected. On Father's Day I ran on the beach in memory of my dad, so thankful for this legacy of running that he handed off to me. In some ways, his absence was the hardest thing about the trip, but in other ways he was right there, laughing with that beautiful smile of his, marveling at what these grandsons of his can do, enjoying a good cup of coffee in the morning, the simple things. If I open my heart up wide enough, he's always there.