Why are vacations such hard work?

8:53 pm. Can I go to bed now?

My word, going to the beach is exhausting! But we dug our feet in

we caught up on our reading

and spent a lot of time in the water. It was beautiful!

We watched a wedding from our hotel room

which would have been very romantic had the sand not been 2000 degrees.

See them running back to boardwalk? The ceremony lasted less than two minutes. Do you? Yes. Do you? Yes. Okay, you're married.

Then we ate some dinner (Caesar salad, shrimp, scallops, crab cakes, and more shrimp. And bread.), after which Abbie laid down on the bench and went to sleep.

We revived our little sleeping machine (she's like a big toddler) and went to do something we never did in the seven years we lived there: we went to Mount Trashmore. (I'll save you a click: Mount Trashmore used to be a giant landfill. The greenies in Virginia Beach buried the whole thing and named it Mount Trashmore. It's the premier place in southeast Virginia to fly a kite.)

Mount Trashmore has lots to do: walking trails and an awesome playground that is specifically built for handicapped kids. When we first got there, we stopped at the rest room near the playground. Abbie is wondering how this is going to work.

My kids are wonderful. They always think about taking pictures for the blog. Abbie calls these "Fun-size potties."

Then we climbed the stairs to the top.

Great view of everything going on down below, like this giant dog walking his family

and I finally got my picture taken with the famous Mt. Trashmore totem pole

When we were sufficiently worn out and ready for bed (about 6:30), we headed back to the hotel. We fell into our beds and found a good, schmaltzy Hallmark movie to watch and commenced with the sniffling and awww-ing. At the crucial moment, the screen went blue and fuzzy and we all screamed. Not knowing whether it was the television or the satellite signal, Abbie started pressing buttons on the remote, because what else would we do in such dire circumstances? She decided we needed to reset the TV settings, and here's what came up

Sony needs my help. I laughed about "resetted" half the night.

The movie finally came back on, we finished our awww-ing, and shut it all down. That's when the bass started warming up.

Remember the wedding? This one?

It may have looked all happy and peaceful, but let me tell you, these people rocked it out in the bar directly under our room until midnight.

So after another day of hard work riding the waves, we're officially done in. Good night, Gracie.

Be thankful ~

Karen