Virginia Beach

Well, not too much has happened since the last time I blogged. Work has been going well and we've been trying to find fun things to do here in CVille. We spent a fun afternoon downtown a couple weeks ago doing some shopping (window at least). We've been addicted to the Godfather and finished up part 3 last Thursday. Its time to watch the deleted scenes now. There's like a whole movie's worth of them! My parents were here a couple weekends ago too for an afternoon which was fun. Had a good lunch at CiCi's with them. :) We also had our friends Kerri and Jared over for a dinner at our place and that was a lot of fun. The following evening we went over to their place for dessert, snacks, and a movie. We watched the new Poseidon which I think ranks as one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but it was fun to hang out with them anyhow. :) I guess the big thing that happened was our mini-vacation out to Virginia Beach last weekend. Here's a round-up:

The past weekend was a lot of fun. I took worked on Monday (Labor Day) and took Friday off instead to avoid the Labor Day weekend crowds and costs and we went out to Virginia Beach. We left early Friday morning and had a nice drive over there and arrived around noon. We spent the weekend camping at First Landing State Park and set up camp when we got there. We brought our bikes with us and the first thing we did was to go riding. I wanted to ride out to the beach through the 4-mile path through the park. We eventually made it to a beach, but then found out we were on the Chesepeake Bay and had taken a wrong turn on the path at the beginning! So, we turned back around, but on the way, Liz's tire went flat. Luckily, having taken a wrong turn and not being inside the park at all, there was a bike shop only a few blocks down that fixed her up real quick. So, we biked back into the park and through the park which was just beautiful. Then, we ended up missing the turn for the beach and biking an extra mile or two until the end of the park! It was very nice down there too, so it wasn't too bad. We took our time biking back and then made the right turn to go out to the beach. By the time we got there, it was getting dark and colder so we walked around a little and then biked on back to the campsite. So, overall we probably biked almost 15 miles! We were pretty tired, but it was fun. When we got back, we walked to the beach on the Cheapeake Bay right by our campsite and watched the sunset. It was amazing and we saw a ton of dolphins too! Liz went crazy for them. :-) In the evening, we headed down to the main area, walked the boardwalk some and had an amazing dinner. I had a cajun shrimp pasta dish...oh man it was good. Got back late and slept in the next morning. When we woke up Saturday morning, we just lazed around and ate a light breakfast. Then we drove out to look for some lunch and found a cute cafe place called the Leaping Lizard which was very tasty and fun. The bees outside were annoying, but overall it was a good experience. We then drove back to the beach and spent the rest of the afternoon doing nothing. Just lounging in the sun, sleeping, etc. By the time we decided to go swimming, it was getting too cold and a ton of jellyfish were arriving. Not cool. Oh, and while lounging, one of the air force bases was doing something sweet and we saw a mini-air show for quite awhile. Very neat. :) We spent the early part of the evening back downtown and shared a great calzone at an Italian place. We walked the boardwalk some more and then walked the beach at night too. I should mention that the harvest moon was out this weekend and it was incredible every time it rose. I've never seen moons like that. :-) We came back sorta early, around 10, and made a sweet campfire and roasted marshmallows and made smores. So good. :) That lasted until way too late when we finally got to bed. I actually woke up pretty early, like 7:30, and took Liz and we walked over the the beach on the Cheaspeake during sunrise. It was very beautiful. :) We saw some more dolphins too. We came back to the tent and then slept a few more hours. :P We got up around 11 and started cleaning up the camp a little bit. Then right before we left to go to the showers, I locked the keys in the car! It was the worst feeling ever. We went off to shower and I had a long time to think about it and was pretty angry. I got back to the car and then thought of something. Before showering, I had left the trunk open just for the heck of it. Then, I remememberd that I could pull a lever and crawl into the car from the trunk! Woo! That was very relieving and after such a heart-wrenching ordeal we headed downtown for a huge buffet breakfast. It was great. We came back to our site, finished closing up and then checked out. We parked somewhere else and then started biking back to the beach. A little bit into it, we decided it was too late in the day and we were still too tired, so we biked back to the car. We instead walked over to the beach on the Chesapeake and spent the late afternoon and early sunset being lazy there. That ended up being a lot of fun and very relaxing. Nice sunset too and a few dolphins. :) Later, we put our bikes on the car and went out for dinner at a very good Mexican place. Then left Virginia Beach a little after 9 and made it home by midnight. Good times. :)

Other than that, not too much has gone on this week. Last night it was beautiful weather out and we hiked around Ivy Creek Natural Area for a couple hours. I'm looking forward to this weekend. Not any plans, but it'll be nice. Dave next weekend!