I have returned from vacation.

If you’ve read my posts for the last few months you’ll know how much I bitched about wanting to go to the beach. Well, I did and now I’m back and I won’t bitch anymore.

For now.

This is basically a little recap of what I did so I can come back five months down the line when I’m hating the weather and think about the beach and the 90 degrees (32 C for everyone else) of sweltering heat.

August 11 – August 16

On Sunday the 11th, my family and I left for the beach. It takes about 7-8 hours to get there, depending on traffic and rest stops. We left around nine and didn’t get there until almost six thanks to the traffic jam that occurs before we go into the underwater tunnel.

For the next few days, we laid around on the beach and watched dolphins swim by almost every morning. I did my best to get a good picture but with the light being so bright, could barely see the screen on my camera.

We played mini-golf (I won…no I didn’t, I was freaking last don’t get me started), rented bikes (one of my favorite parts about Virginia Beach is the bike path next to the boardwalk which can be used 24/7), and people-watched from our balcony.

Virginia Zoological Park 

On Wednesday we went to the zoo. It’s super nice and not really huge, but clean and with the heat, most of the animals were sleeping or standing under sprinklers.

That meerkat in the picture literally sat there, changing poses. I saw Tapirs, which are one of my favorite animals and got a stuffed one and named it Tina.

I’m all for zoos trying to help with extinction and saving animals who have been hurt and can’t be returned to the wild, which was the case for some of these animals.

Norfolk Botanical Gardens 

On Thursday, we weren’t sure how the weather was going to cooperate with the chance of rain being 50-60% and the Botanical Gardens ended up being a last-minute decision. We took a tram tour around the grounds and got to see everything because like I said, this was a last-minute thing and we weren’t ready to walk miles.

However, we walked to the nearby areas such as the Japanese and Rose Gardens. It’s such a nice place and I’d love to go back and spend more time there. I was pretty disappointed we would miss the Honey Bee Festival on the 17th.

As I’m writing this on the 17th, I’m still very disappointed.

The Food 

I didn’t take any pictures of my food because 1.) I didn’t think about it and 2.) it wasn’t on the plate long. I pretty much didn’t eat much throughout the day and left it all for dinner. We went to some of our regular places for pizza, Italian, and seafood and tried two new restaurants, which turned out to be some of our favorites of the week.

The last three days I swear my stomach was screaming at me to stop overeating. And yet, I kept doing it.

Until Next Year

We lucked out with the weather being nice all week despite some rain late in the day. I got a little bit of sunburn along my hairline and ended up buying a floppy hat, which I enjoyed wearing the rest of the week.

One of my favorite parts of the week was watching the bicycling piano men ride down the boardwalk. That’s literally what they are. They play the piano while bicycling and it was very entertaining.

Now that I’m back and used all my vacations for the year, I hope to get back on schedule with my posts. I hope to publish my book soon and get fewer hours at work so I can focus on all these things. I’m writing and posting this on my last day of vacation and feeling a bit bummed out but I want to also use it as motivation to get my shit done. And I will. As long as a post-vacation depression doesn’t screw me over.

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