Beach camping. Dolphins and wild ponies included.

Sometimes just trying to get out of the house is the hardest part of going on a trip. As we were attempting to leave at a reasonable hour on Friday morning, I had flashbacks of childhood vacations involving great stress (for my parents) just trying to get past the driveway. Was the oven turned off? Did we lock the back door? Did everyone go to the bathroom?

We were doing pretty well until we tried to start the car, only to discover that our car battery was dead. We found a neighbor to help us out and got the car started. We began piling in the car again and Amelia slipped and landed in a huge mud puddle and so we headed back into the house to change all of her clothes. We finally got on the road and were enjoying our favorite road trip food, Chex Muddy Buddies, and became so engrossed in a conversation about the song "Sister Christian" by Night Ranger, that we drove about 10 miles beyond our exit.

Despite the rocky start, we had a great time camping this past weekend on Assateague Island, about 3 hours away. We met up with our great friends the Dyckmans and really enjoyed spending some time with them and watching Ethan and Amelia play together again. Sarah was pretty brave to attempt camping at 8 months pregnant. I particularly enjoyed some kid-free time swimming with Sarah while the husbands cleaned up camp.

We were expecting some rain but ended up with great weather. It actually got really hot on Saturday so we all enjoyed cooling off in the ocean. We even saw some dolphins cruising along not too far from the shore.


It was pretty windy on Friday which made putting up the tents an interesting challenge.


Amelia loved the waves and wanted to swim by herself.


Ben and Amelia playing in the water.





Ethan and Amelia trying to warm up after their evening swim.


We had fun feeding the birds and watching them dive for food. We also got to see some kite boarders which was fun to watch.



Amelia spent most of her time busily collecting shells at our campsite.


Roasting marshmallows.


Eating s'mores.


Hanging out in the tent.


We woke up in the morning and found several wild ponies strolling around our campground.




A sunrise stroll along the beach. Notice Amelia is yawning...we thought Elsa would be the one to worry about at night, but she slept soundly all night long. Amelia, however, woke up in the middle of the night screaming and we couldn't snap her out of it for about 10 minutes. The wind was blowing the tent a lot and was really loud and I think it gave her nightmares.


We drove down to Chincoteague on the Southern part of the Island Saturday afternoon and went to this lighthouse.



After viewing some wildlife on Chincoteague Island, we went into the town and had some delicious pizza at Ledo Pizza (highly recommended) and then stopped for ice cream before heading back home.