To the Beach!

Ocean waves, sunshine and a warm breeze...a perfect way to spend the day!

For whatever crazy reason, I had this wild idea to take my family to the beach.  Its not like in Washington state where the coast is only about an hour away....to get to the actual ocean beach from where we live, its about a 3.5 hour drive, if traffic is good.  And also unlike Washington state, the beaches here are packed!  Almost everyone I spoke to about going warned me about how bad the traffic would be and that I should hold off due to the holiday weekend.  But I was determined.  After some consulting with friends, the Acosta's, I learned what beach I wanted to get to and when I doubted myself about going, they gave me the extra push to "just go", traffic is crazy no matter when you go and if you let it dictate when and where you go around here, you will never go anywhere.  So, instead of going on Saturday morning, we headed out on Sunday.  Jay wanted to go along, too, even though hanging out in the hot sunshine on a beach is probably the last place he wanted to be, not to mention he'd just come off the midnight shift at work.  He was a trooper for the sake of having "family time".  Here are some pics from the day:

Traffic was flowing nicely at 9 AM....

The HOV express lane was closed off to cars and only allowed motorcycles on this day.  The boys got a kick out of all the bikes and all the spectators and emergency vehicles on the overpasses waving flags and flashing lights.  Didn't realize Sunday was the annual Memorial Day "Rolling Thunder" motorcycle rally in DC, meant to honor prisoners of war and soliders missing in action and raise awareness of the issues facing the nation's veterans.  This year was the 25th anniversary of the rally, which started out with only 2500 participants and spectators and has now reached upwards of 900,000.  I've never seen so many Harleys... 

This is the long toll bridge that is apparently the cause of much gridlock headache and what my neighbors warned me would be horrible if we went this weekend.  The Bay Bridge crosses the Chesapeake Bay to and from the eastern shore in Maryland.  The Coronado Bridge in San Diego was the biggest/longest bridge I'd seen until now.  Clearly we lucked out going on Sunday morning, hardly any traffic!  Though we hear the bridge was backed up seven miles on Monday night...eesh!

Made our way to Bethany Beach in Delaware, but it was so crowded we couldn't find parking, so headed a few miles south to Fenwick Island and found easy parking right near this beach access path.

Little did I realize, I should've let Zac stay covered like this!  Darn sunburns...

Jay trying his best to enjoy himself

First time touching the Atlantic Ocean!

...and then we couldn't drag them away...they had so much fun!

I don't "do" water, but I did stick my feet in for a little while

Trev thought he was ready to conquer, but decided he wanted nothing to do with the water.  I think the waves scared him

Thought I would be busy chasing him around, but he was content just playing in the sand

Jay and I took turns standing watch at the water over the big boys.  Good thing Jay came with afterall, not sure how I would've managed that alone

Sand toys are the best!

Didn't realize, as I was lounging around, that all the while my kids were getting burnt to a crisp :(

 

Jay had applied some to Zac's face and neck since he's the fairest one of all of them, and at the time they were wearing t-shirts.  Just didn't think to do it once the t-shirts came off til much too late in the game.

Unfortunately, the face application was not as thorough as one might've thought...i honestly think their actual eyeballs got burned too!

All in all, it was a great day and fun memories made.  The little beach town has mini golf, go-karts, fun restaurants, and candy and ice cream shops (we had ice cream to die for there...).  We definitely plan to go back someday when we can stay a day or two longer and actually experience the town more, and also would love to see the beach at dusk.  Hopefully the memory of these awful sunburns doesn't outweigh the fun times they had playing at the beach.  Live and learn.  I just gotta continue to remind myself that they are only 1/4 Filipino!!  You can bet my kids will be the most covered, slathered up kids on the beach next time.