Virginia Beach with the Hoops

Over memorial day weekend, we took an extra day off to spend with the Hoop family. Meaning Brandon's parents, and his brothers family. We arrived almost a day earlier than they did. Friday was nice because I got to warm myself up with the idea of being 7 months pregnant and in a swimming suit. When Brandon and I arrived late Thursday night while at baggage claim I was shocked to see my ankles had become cankles!! They said that is pretty typical when being pregnant and flying, but it was a shock to me. That whole weekend I kept fighting with my cankles. At night when we got back to our room, I would try to keep them elevated whenever possible. I learned that with the flight, heat, and not drinking enough water that there was nothing I could really do about it. When they arrived Friday night we all went out to dinner to a great pizza place.

Saturday we got up and went to the beach, it wasn't the greatest weather but we were able to get some sun. Saturday night ended up being a beautiful night. We ate at a really nice restaurant on the beach. However when you are on the beach what kind of food do you see a lot of???? Fish....who doesn't like fish??? ME!!! So I think I ordered the Captain Crunch, the waiter kind of laughed at me. I order chicken fingers off the kids menu surprise surprise. I did get a nice house salad as well as a bake potato to help make up for the nutritional value of eating on the kids menu! Everything tasted great.



Sunday was amazing and hot out. I didn't think I would get in the ocean, just because it was cold but we were hot. So I did get my legs wet. I didn't get fully under the water. I have a problem with getting into water that I can't see what is swimming around me. After lunch Ali who is our niece wanted to go to the pool. Which is my kind of vacation!! Pool a place where you can see all the way to the bottom. Its funny how water temperature doesn't really phase kids. We thought it was pretty cold, and she just got in. She really like the slide. So Brandon and her played on the slide for a while, I was sitting on a chair with my feet elevated! ;-)



Once the sun went down we headed to Olive Garden! One of our favorite places to eat. You pretty much can never go wrong eating there. Although we went through one round of bread sticks and we asked for more. Have you ever been to a Olive Garden and they run out of bread sticks? Well they did. That was a bummer, but we still had a great time. That night we played Farkle with Jonathan and Alayna. Our friend Tim when he came into town a couple weeks ago introduced us to this game. It was a lot of fun. I am not going to tell you who won though....I will give you a hint it was a boy and it wasn't Brandon. We don't want this person to get a big head on his shoulder. He thinks he is unbeatable in all games. The next time we see him, we will just have to see about that!
Monday we spent our last day at the beach. Again you couldn't ask for a better day. The sun was shining and it was hot. Perfect weather for being at a beach. We went back and forth from the pool and beach.


Opps you weren't suppose to see this!! LOL
Once we cleaned up we decided to rent a surrey bike. A couple of years ago my family did this in Olando and I remembered it looked a lot harder than we thought it did. Well nothing changed. Since we had 7 people including Ali. We rented one Surrey and a tricycle, Brandon and I started out on the tri.
We were behind the surrey, but however we couldn't figure out why they were going to slow. All we could hear was Jonathan saying I can't do all the work here. I am pulling 1000lbs all by myself. So 15 min into the ride (might I add we rented these for an hour) Brandon decided to switch with Alayna. They started off with Jonathan in the front, Dave next to him, Brandon behind Dave, and Patty behind Jonathan. Thinking this was going to be the strategy to get them to move. Oh Ali was enjoying herself. She was singing away in the front of the bike enjoying the ride. Alayna and I took off. We would get way a head, then pull off to the side and wait for them. The first time we met back with them we notice that the biking strategy had changed. I was Jonathan, and Brandon in the front with their parents in the back. Brandon and Jonathan looked whipped. Brandon said this is so much harder than the tricycle. We still had about 20 min left. Patty was sweating, and if you know Patty she hates to sweat! This was a workout for them. Alayna and I took off once again, periodically checking back on them making sure they were still back there. And they were. We notice that we had 5 min to get back. So Alayna and I took off, we said at least we can get ours back in time, they might have to pay if they go over. So we were off. We dropped the tricycle off, with some time to spare. We got off our bike and decided to sit on the a near by bench. We finally saw them, they were tying their hardest to make it back on time. They were close, the guy didn't say anything. I liked Jonathan's comment at the end, I think this pretty much summed up their experience on the surrey bike. "Why did we pay 40 dollars for an hour long workout?"
It was a good time. We got some great pictures. That was our last night together, Tuesday morning Brandon and I got up early to catch our flight. And we were really early. I mean we had an hour of sitting at the airport. That was a little to early for us, we will have to reevaluate our time the next time we fly home from some place.