Planes, Trains and Automobiles (and beaches)

Just getting back into the routine of daily life this week after spending a fantastic week with the family on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This was truly a family vacation, as we were lucky enough to spend the week with my brother and my parents, too. The occasion was my parent's 40th anniversary -- quite an accomplishment for sure. Congratulations, Mom & Dad!
This was the first visit to the ocean for Ally and Ty, and I suspect not the last. We were lucky enough to rent a great house just a couple hundred feet from the beach, and then even luckier to find a week of absolutely perfect beach weather. Kind of a perfect storm of conditions for kids on the beach, and they took full advantage. Not too much happening on this trip besides playing in the water and constructing sand castles. The kids headed straight for the water, and like most kids, stayed in until they had turned a nice shade of blue. I think that after the first day or two, they figured out that the ocean would be there for them every day, and they learned to self regulate their time in the water just a little bit (cutting down on the blue lips). Speaking of body colors, I do need to apologize to Ty for his genetic make-up now -- it is amazing to me that the four of us can all put on the exact same sunblock in the exact same quantities, and yet somehow Lauren and Ally come away tan and Ty and I came home to VT still fish-belly white. Sorry pal. Aside from my futile attempts to get a tan, we also had some good fun with boogie boards, footballs, frisbees and a bit of surf-casting. And yes, even in the ocean I have the same propensity for landing the big catch -- Steve and I caught several fish which easily clobbered the 8" mark.

So the only tough part of the week was getting to and from the house. The place we rented is on an area of beach which can be accessed by 4x4 only, and since we were using airline miles for tickets, we also added a bit of travel by not getting to select the optimal airport for arrival. So, the first Saturday featured a 4:45 AM wake up call for our crew, a 40-minute drive to the airport, two flights, a nasty brawl with the good folks at Enterprise, a 90 minute drive to pick up Mom, Dad and Steve, an hour traffic jam in Virginia and then two short hours to the house. Unbelievably, the kids did far less complaining than the adults. They really were amazing.

The ride home was hilarious, though. A week of late bedtimes, short naps, more sugar than normal and complete over stimulation left the kids in a really funny state. We spent Saturday and Sunday in Virginia Beach, and then took off early afternoon (after ice cream) for the Richmond airport. Too tired to sleep, Ally and Ty began a barrage of chatter and 'why' questions the likes of which I've not experienced. Two hours in the car, one hour in the airport and one flight later, the chatter was still going. At this point, I'm just looking at Lauren and laughing. I'm really just wondering which kid will a) run out of things to say (unlikely), or b) pass out first. As we take off on our last leg home from Philly, my question is answered. Ally fell asleep about 17 seconds after buckling her seat belt. Tyler, on the other hand, is now entering his 9th hour of continuous talking. He and I spent the trip to Burlington breaking down everything in his world to the atom-level. We've taken 'why' questions so far that I'm getting to answers like 'some things just ARE and some things ARE NOT'.

In the end, Ty was asleep before we'd left the Burlington airport parking lot, and Ally wasn't too far behind him (she did *wake up* when we got off the plane. All in all, a really great vacation, great weather, great company and almost no issues with travel. Tough to ease back into the normal routine this week, but no too bad. Already looking forward to next year's ocean visit.