The Wiltin Rose: By the sea side

Yesterday turned out a little differently than expected. My doctor's appointment was scheduled for 11:30...I arrived promptly at 11:20, checked in, sat down just starting to take out my knitting, and heard one of the other patients ask something like "How much longer do you think he'll be?" One of the 2 nurses in the room responded with "Well, it's been 30 minutes now and he said he thought he'd be an hour because there was an accident in the tunnel." MY ears perked up because my doctor is NOTORIOUS for running behind on a good day. I said to the nurse "My appointment is for 11:30, how many people are ahead of me?" and she said "Five". OH, HELL NO!!! I got up and walked over to the receptionist, cancelled my appointment and said I'd call to reschedule. Bloody ridiculous that no one mentioned this wait when I checked in. At any rate, I wasn't up for sitting in the doctor's office for 5 or 6 hours and wasting an entire vacation day.

I got back home in time to take the kids, their lunch, metal detector, and a little remote control airplane (not Steve's big one, this is some dinky styrofoam one) over to the ballfield. They ate their sandwiches and Steve and I dug up a few pennies but all that's over there is mostly tin foil and pop tops. The kids flew the plane for about 10 minutes, you know, until they had crashed it so many times it broke! But they had fun and the break is fixable.

Dress fitting appointment was for 3:30...we got there at 3:15 and were finished by 3:30. Decided to go out to Virginia Beach since I had never been there. I wanted to try out the metal detector on the sand and see what we could find. It is prime tourist season, afterall.

There is nothing like a trip to the beach for rejuvination. I rarely feel the need to swim, mostly because I hate it that I can't see the bottom on the east coast and I hate getting sand where sand just shouldn't be. What I love is sitting and watching the people, listening to the waves and sea gulls, and feeling the mist on my face. Will and Delaney ran right into the water upon arrival, Tinna hung back and clung to my hand. That lasted about 20 minutes until an older girl came over to play with Delaney. She (the older girl) asked Tinna if she wanted to play, too, and that was the end. All of the kids made new friends and had a blast building dams and moats. Delaney's second tooth fell out at one point. Steven walked around with the metal detector and found over $2 in change. Woo-hoo! We had hotdogs for dinner around 7:00 and then left the beach around 8:00 or so. We made two stops on our walk back to the car, one for ice cream (big mess as you'll see below) and one at a little hippie rock shop (real rocks, not music) to look around. Got in the car at almost 9:00 to drive home. I must admit, I really love VA Beach...not the outskirts or driving out that way...it's just way too congested with crazy people...but the oceanfront itself is very nice. It's clean and pretty well maintained. There were public restrooms available (16th Street). There's a boardwalk with a separate bike path. It's not like my memory of Ocean City, MD where bikes and people have to share the space. Very, very lovely. We will definitely be returning.

Plans for today were changed last night around 9:50 when we returned home to find out there has been a crisis of sorts that Steven needs to deal with at work. We were going to head out to Dam Neck today for an entire day of beaching but that is most likely on hold until tomorrow. That's ok. I have plenty of laundry to work on and I haven't registered the kids for the summer reading program yet, either, so I should probably get those two things done.

Photos! Enjoy!

Trying on hats at a thrift shop while Steven pays for the motor for his ghost...

Street scene

Heading to the sand

Water!!!

Beach scene...

Steven "convincing" Tinna she wants to go play

Still not happy

Will looks like he is happy!

Tinna finally playing - at one point she told me "This is my best day EVER!!!"

The tooth is out!

Will getting some water for the sand castle

Tinna in the glow of the sunset - I couldn't resist this shot. There's just something about this age that I love and will miss when they are all grown.