Spring Break

Over Spring Break, we headed to Virginia Beach for a short little getaway. While my sister and her boys did this awesome ropes course, my Dad and my two kids went to the aquarium right next door. If you can believe it, it wasn't crowded at all! It was really special to be able to have so many of the areas to ourselves, and get to talk one on one with a lot of the experts. 

The kids could have spent hours in this final area of the building, which had a lot of play sets for kids. It was hard to pull them away when we needed to go and get the rest of our group. We really loved this aquarium (especially compared to the one in the Outer Banks that was a huge let down) and were super bummed when we found out there are TWO buildings, not just one. We had no idea! If we ever go back, we will have to do more exploring of what we missed.

So as I said above, right next door is a ropes course that is part of the aquarium. The boys had a blast and spent hours here. There are different levels of difficulty, but unfortunately Brody just missed the cut. Watching the boys climb across the trees was just too much for him... He so badly wanted to crawl up and follow along! 

Funny thing about that big jump... While the rest of us were waiting for the boys to wrap things up, there was a woman on this post that kept letting everyone go in front of her. She must have been up there a good thirty minutes, maybe more. Nobody could convince her to jump. Not her friends, not the strangers passing her by and not even the workers. Eventually, they had to grab a ladder and climb up to help her down because truly, jumping was the only way out of it! Even Diego had to talk himself into it, but he pulled it off! 

The next day, we somehow settled on going on Go Karts. I don't even remember what the original plan had been, but Go Karts were SO. MUCH. FUN. Can you believe this was my first time!? I just didn't grow up with a place near by, so this was my first time. Again, it was not crowded at all, so there was virtually no wait for any of the tracks we wanted to try. Autumn and Brody weren't tall enough to drive all by themselves, but they could ride shotgun with an adult driver. Jodi and I took turns, and the kids had a blast! 

The first go around Brody rode with Jodi. I don't know how much driving he let Jodi do, because he grabbed for that steering wheel as much as his little arms would let him! The finniest part was at only 3 years old, Brody needed no assistance with his track talk on the track! 

The track that Brody could drive by himself on, was pretty lame. Essentially just Power Wheels, but man did he have a blast!

Even Grandpa got in on the action!

After Go Karts, we decided to stop by the beach and let the kids play for a little bit. The board walk has a lot of playgrounds right on the beach for the kids to play on. Brody would have spent the whole day using the sand diggers! The area certainly doesn't compare to the Outer Banks, but it was a really fun trip. A great way to kick off our first, official Spring Break.