you are my sunshine

I've grown to love Virginia for all of it's seasons, especially autumn. I was really excited when we got our first snow. The first two years we lived here we hardly got a dusting. This year the schools have cancelled so many times, they've extended the school year. While that doesn't really effect us, the many days trapped inside do. (GO HOME SNOW!) I can only keep four highly energized monkeys in the cage for so long. Between snow days we had a weekend when Nick was away with the Army and it was going to be 60 degrees. The day it was 60 degrees we were expecting 14 inches of snow....

Naturally, I decided we needed to go fossil hunting for shark teeth. It's one of my family's favorite things to do. I couldn't stand the thought of letting a perfectly nice day go to waste when we would be banging our heads against the wall  enjoying such close quarters together soon enough. We have a favorite place to go, but to get to it, a person would need to walk down a very steep hill to the beach. I was not going to attempt that with four small children, one of whom can barely walk. Oh, and I'm pregnant. That excuse pretty much covers all things. We tried out a new park in Maryland, about the same driving time as the place we normally go. We did have to walk about a mile to get to the beach from the parking lot, but the hill was manageable because I had the double jogging stroller and it was all gravel. It was a nice leg stretch after a long drive anyway.

I was surprised by how large the beach was! There weren't very many brave souls out that day, lucky us. We had a huge area to ourselves so I could just let everyone roam around without fear of much besides the seagulls. The kids tell me they saw some baby seagulls. I tried to take a photo but then I couldn't find said baby bird. The boys were more interested in throwing rocks in the water and Ava was just enjoying shoving handfuls of sand in her mouth. Haylie was searching for shark teeth, our intended purpose in going there. She found a few after digging for quite a while. It didn't make her happy when her brother just simply looked down and found the largest of the day.

The wind started to pick up after about an hour so we headed back. It was a great day and I intend to go back with Nick when it starts to feel like spring. The evening did bring TEN inches of snow, so the next day was filled with snow cream adventures!