Virginia Beach

After a very l-o-n-g ten hour car ride, we arrived at Virginia Beach.  What a view from our condo!!  But one small downside...it's very loud here.  The boardwalk is very busy all hours of the day and night.  And the kid's bedroom faces the street where there is nonstop action with bars and live bands and lots of noise from cars and motorcycles.  Oh...and I can't forget all the fighter jets flying overhead!  But on the flip side...I am very grateful to have this roomy condo with 2 1/2 bathrooms, separate beds for the kids, a full size kitchen, comfy living room, large dining table and the beach and many restaurants and convenience stores within seconds of our front door.  Yes...very grateful we aren't stuck in a hotel for the week!!!

Our view during the day...

and our view at night...

Gianna always gets terribly homesick when we leave home for vacations and this trip is no exception.  She cried most of the way down here.  Very sad...

The other two were just fine though...

When we got here we explored the beach and the shops around us.  We thought it would be really fun to rent one of these...

Well...it was fun for about five minutes...then it was just way way way too much work.  It is very hot and humid here so between that and all the pedaling...we were ready to return it!!  

The next day, which was our first full day here with no scheduled dancing, we went to the Ocean Breeze water park right down the street from our hotel.  The weather was perfect and the park was clean and loads and loads of fun!!!

I love water slides and went down most of them with the kids.

Later that night, we met up with some other dance families for dinner...

Then the next day was the start of the dance competition.  Julia really out did herself with her solo.  She was absolutely gorgeous!!  No mistakes at all. Really...it was her personal best!  I couldn't have been more proud of my girl! She scored a platinum and placed 8th overall!!!  And that was out of 57 solos!! Go Julia!!  The trio was also fantastic!  They scored a "platinum plus" and won a spot in the dance off where the top 5 routines from each category compete again on Saturday.  It was by far the cleanest performance for them.  I hope they have a repeat performance on Saturday!

My Julia deserves all these trophies!!!  Haha!!!  Scary though...her room is starting to look like this...

Today we spent the morning at the Virginia Aquarium which is also right down the street.  You really can't beat this location!  It's not as good as the Mystic Aquarium but it was still very nice with lots of great fish and reptiles like this guy...

huge tanks like this...

and this guy...

Oh no!!!

And we saw a great 3D movie in the IMAX theater about great white sharks...

Then we spent the afternoon at the beach right out our front door...

It was very hot and humid today.  The kids enjoyed some slushies that stained their mouths blue...

As you can tell from that picture above...Gianna still isn't happy about being down here.  We had a pretty big thunderstorm late this afternoon and she is very afraid of them so that didn't help either.

Tomorrow Gianna gets her turn to dance and Julia has two dances as well.

Stay tuned...