End of summer beach days

Biggest blogging foul ever--I totally deleted this post and now I have to recreate it. What the heck!! Who has time for that??? I'm already behind...I hope when I re-post this it posts in its proper place and doesn't jump to the top as the most recent. Sheesh. All I did was click the edit button and then attempt to add a "t" to the end of "firs" in the sentence that introduced this "first" picture. When I added the t, the entire post disappeared. I frantically hit control z to undo it, but nothing. Then I tried to "revert to saved," but the button changed to "save" and voila, post gone. Blank page saved.

I'm not going to try to remember what I wrote because I'm tired and that would make this even more stressful than it already is. We'll have to rely on memories to recreate this one for Hannah when she's older. Fortunately, with four of us adults there, it should be easy to piece the whole thing together.

The basics: end of trip to Sandbridge, Virginia, a beach just south of Virginia Beach that is referred to locally as the start of the Outerbanks. The outcome: awesome. The journey in pics:


Boogie boarding with daddy first thing.

Lots of sandcastle building.

Wave hopping with daddy.

Snuggling in the surf with daddy.

Massaging a wonderful sand pack into Uncle Joel's shoulders.

 Rolling in the sand. It was impossible to keep this kid sunblocked because if she wasn't in the water, which is where she was most of the time, she was rolling in the sand.

Playing with Reagan in the sand (friends who live in the area who made it out to the beach to play two of the days we were there).

Running on the beach with Amy (our day 2, Amy's day 1).

Sandcastle architecture with Uncle Joel.

A buried mommy with a pregnant belly and giant pregnant hooters to match.

 

Playing in the water with Amy and Joel

Our house was awesome, minus the fact that the cord to the toaster burned up when I tried to plug it in and the bathroom light could only be turned off by hitting the light plate repeatedly. It was on the back part of the island, farthest from the beach (which means two streets away), tucked into this wooded lot that backed up to a lake.

The view from the back porch.

After long days in the sun at the beach, we all enjoyed some time fishing out back, until the last night anyway when the water moccasins came and scared Eric and Joel into the house.

As usual, Hannah befriended the bait.

The quintessential way for native Marylanders to celebrate summer is with a bushel of steamed crabs. I'm native, but my parents aren't so this is something I grew up doing with my friends, but not with my family. As such, I'm an okay crab picker, but not the best. This was Hannah's first crab feast. She loved it.

It started pouring rain on our way back with the crabs so we set up our picnic at the table underneath the house and watched the rain come down while we picked.

The yard was gorgeous when the sun returned.

 And it was full of huge puddles, perfect for hopping in with Uncle Joel.

After crabs, Hannah caught her first trout.

And then they showed me this super dangerous rope swing that they had found earlier in the day by trespassing across the neighbors' yards. I freaked out about her not wearing a life jacket and swinging that far out over a lake that deep and infested with water moccasins. Eric seemed to think it was perfectly safe, but this was before he realized just how many water moccasins were in that lake so maybe now he'd sing a different tune (seeing the few that we already had up to that point was enough for me to conclude that it was infested).

Snuggle fest with Amy and Joel.

Surveying the waves on our last full day at the beach.

Looking for shells with Amy.

Decorating castles with Amy and the daughters of our friends who made it back out that day.

This is currently in the running for "all time favorite pic of Hannah."

We took one final walk on the beach before driving away on our last day. Hannah took Lila and let her get her feet sandy.

We attempted a few family pics. I can't pick my favorite of Amy and Joel...they're both pretty similar.

This friendship goes waaaaaaaay back. I'm talking more than 15 years...

Hannah screamed bloody murder about having her picture taken, then when I posed with Amy and not her, she screamed about not being included. As a result of constant screaming, our family pic did not work out the way that I'd hoped it would...but here we are after a super fun and happy half-week at the beach!

The writing on this version was definitely half-assed, but it's the best effort I'm willing to put forth at this point. I am so mad at Blogger for deleting my post so cavalierly an then refusing to give it back!! Ugh!