Tons of vacation pics here, so much so that you, faithful reader (all 4 of you), will most likely tire of the scrolling and clicking.
NB: There is no prize for viewing each and every picture along with the matching full size version, nor will reading all the witty and mundane commentary in a single sitting, later cross referencing the third letter of each illuminating caption (ie, “this is us at the beach!”) with a Captain Midnight decoder ring lead you to long lost buried treasure.
I’d encourage skimming and repeat visits instead of throwing yourself against the sheer mass and wonder of the following hundred or so pictures.
Click the zoom icon 
to see the full size image, these can get pretty big- might be a tad slow on dial-up, for instance…
The Beach
The beach was wonderful, we were conveniently located on 73rd St, ocean side:
This meant that getting to the beach was walking out the front door, turning left, walking past a few houses and strolling down the board walk. 73rd street is the North End of the beach, which is mostly residential and bordered by [Fort Story] to the north and Seashore State park (officially called [First Landing State Park] these days) to the west. Location was perfect!
To recap:
Out the front door, through the gate:
walk down a few doors, get on the boardwalk through the dunes:
then hit the beach!
I don’t know this guy, but I liked his big happy dogs.
Gabe the sand crab:
Gabe loved the beach, but was not at all interested in getting in the water even a little bit. This was despite the fact that he was completely in love with the “buggie board” that was at the beach house:
Gabe would drag the buggie board all the way down to the beach, get about 20 feet from the water and decide that was as close an acquaintance he wanted to make with the ocean:
If we tried to push him to give the ocean a try, the sand crab would dig out a shallow hole and lay in it:
Graydon the Beachcomber
Graydie liked cruising around the beach and wasn’t ocean-adverse like Gabe was.
buried treasure
Both the kiddos liked digging and playing the sand:
Dyla-monster and Hannah Banana
Cousins Dylan and Hannah came down one day for beach play:
This pic is just about the only shot out of dozens of attempts where the dolphins can be clearly seen about 50 yards from the waterline. The dolphins were out every day except the last two, when a storm system had started to move in.
Graydie couldn’t stop playing with Hannah, though Hannah wasn’t exactly exuberant to be on the receiving end of the Graydie-love.
Dylan getting a bit of the buried in sand treatment:
theme: out of focus
There was a great lightning storm out one night and I made an earnest but futile attempt to get some shots. I think a combination of my equipment and acumen prevented me from getting the great shots I was hoping for here:
Wrapping up
These are a few other shots I liked that have no other better spot to land:
Hanging out on the beach:
Hanging out in the beach house:
Graydie showing off her mouth full of chompers:
Graydie, old before her time- with an aching back and a case of the grips*
*this isn’t meant to be understood
Gabe and Graydie got ultra-touristy and went down to the hotel strip to play on the beach playground. After navigating through the out-of-towners and the folks who want to pay us $75 and a tank of gas to go listen to a time-share peddler, we visited the park with the giant Neptune statue:
(This isn’t my picture, I found it on virginia.org [here]) I couldn’t get my kids to stand still long enough to get the pic.
I like Graydie here- she looks like she should be on some kind of baby political poster. The breeze is in her hair, the shot is taken at a heroic angle. Graydie looks positive and optimistic and confident. Gabe would prolly have to be airbrushed out of this hypothetical poster, but Graydie looks ready to bring in some votes.
I’ve got plenty more pics, but I’ll save them for another post. Thanks for reading!