Virginia Beach, VA

The holidays are awesome at the beach! Not only is there much to do in VA Beach, but in the surrounding communities as well.

Last nite, we took the kids out to MacArthur Mall. I love this place! It’s just a beautiful Mall–very upscale as well. We do a lot of window shopping, but I digress.

One of our favorite shops is the 2 story Barnes and Noble. Last nite, we took the kids for hot chocolate and a holiday treat. They love to snack while eating at their own booth. Makes them feel so grown up.

The science store is wonderful and I love the Calendar’s Only store. Wow.

The absolutely NEATEST part about this whole thing is that they have seasonal ice skating! It starts today. How much fun is that? We intend to take the kids to this.

Also, new this year is the indoor upscale farmers market every Saturday and Sunday in November and December. I intend to check this out as well.

Why is it named MacArthur you ask? General MacArthur’s mom was from Norfolk, VA. In fact, he’s buried here at the site close by the Mall.

One thing to note–there is plenty of parking in the parking garage, but you must pay to park. It’s reasonable, but remember to bring some cash if you tend to use a debit/credit card for all of your purchases.

What a teaser, no?

Seriously though, next week, Williamsburg gives free passes to the historical site for military families to celebrate the Veteran’s Day holiday.

So, what does Williamsburg have to do with VA Beach you ask? Well, ok, it is a short 45 minute jaunt(depending upon the time of the day) from VA Beach, just up Route 64. We went last year and it should be noted that you can’t call ahead to get in on this deal. You have to stand in the long line of other savvy folks experiencing this wonderful free event. Best to come early and plan to stay late.

Also, keep in mind that there are limited dining areas in Williamsburg. A great idea might be to pack a picnic lunch in the car.

One other thing that is interesting about Williamsburg is that people still do really live in the town. And, the main street is a public street. SOOOOO….even if you aren’t military, you can still go to Williamsburg for FREE. You just can’t take the trolley in or go in the buildings with the flags outside of them, but you can walk the streets and experience the demonstrations and talk with the actors etc. The church where George Washington and many of the founding fathers worshipped is still in use today. As a public building, you can get into it for free as well. It’s fun to sit in the same pew that George Washington sat it, and to note that the pew where the widow Martha Custis would have sat was just around the bend. HMMMMM……

The website is worth checking out even if you don’t venture to VA or Williamsburg. There’s lots of great activities, especially for children.

Yes. Halloween isn’t even here yet, and I see them setting up Christmas light displays. Seriously.

November 16th, a short 2 weeks away, is the start of the holiday light festival at the beach. I’d suggest if you are here, to take advantage of light display early on in the year. As it gets closer to Christmas, it gets crowded!

Basically, you drive the boardwalk(and experience in itself) and look at the light displays on the beach. Very, very cool. The displays are nautical in theme, of course. Every year, they add a new display.

With admission, you also get a free CD of holiday musica to listen to while you drive.

Check out the website for more info.

Seeing the lights on the beach is a tradition we make time for every year. I highly recommend it to anyone.

If you are in the area on October 27th, check out the free film Walking on Water, at the VA Beach Convention Center. To learn more about the movie, check it out at www.walkingonwaterthemovie.com.

In addition to free admission, they have a skateboarding demo, BMX Demo, music and more, including free prizes and appearances by pro surfers!

Sounds awesome!

First of all, I need to apologize for not posting for so long. All 5, read it again, all 5 of the kids got rotovirus. Several hospital trips later, we seem to be alright. WHEW. I should get a medal of some sort I suppose, but, as my grandmother said, what would that medal look like? I cleaned up and did wash for 5 sick kids?? Oh well, I digress.

Today, one of our first days out, we attended a craft show to benefit the high school. I know, I wasn’t thrilled either, but my neighbor teaches at the school and one of the handicapped classes had an exhibit to raise money for a party. So, off we went.

You know, I am truly sorry that I didn’t bring more money, believe it or not.

There were a few booths that really, really intrigued me. One was a lady who had all sorts of red hat items…really cool ones. Since my grandmother is a “queen mum” I found that fascinating.

The other was cheese and snack trays crafted from these exquisite vodka bottles. The lady actually takes bottles and fires them, and reshapes them to these beautiful art works. Several of the bottles had Van Gogh paintings on them. Wow. I got her card and plan on doing some Christmas shopping later. I mean, wouldn’t those make great hostess gifts?

The other booth was one called tastefully simple. They have gourmet foods for busy people to make from mixes that taste like homemade. They actually had a key lime dessert ball. Wow. You can eat it with graham crackers and it makes a festive dip.

The next festival to raise money for the school will be held November 17 and 18. If you are in the area, I’d stop by Indian River High school in Chesapeake.

On the sand, near 25th street is a HUGE King Neptune statue. I’ve always wondered why he is there or for what purpose. I still have no clue exactly, but the locals have turned the statue into a centerpiece for the King Neptune Festival held the last weekend of September.

We were able to experience the 34 year strong tradition this weekend. The festival centers around incredible sand castles built on the beach between 6 and 10th street. They had competitors from all over the world, including Italy, the Netherlands, and England, as well as some local folks.

The festival is billed as “the event that marks the locals taking back the beach”, but I noticed many tourists participating. The idea of “local” makes me laugh. Who is a local down here? Most of the folks I know are “from somewhere else” due to the strong military prescence in the region. I know a whole bunch of people, our family included, who retire from the military and stay in the area once their last tour is over. So, don’t be intimidated if you are visiting.

The only downside–the lack of parking. Go early, and/ or be prepared to walk and/or pay to park! I think we walked around a total of 4 miles on Sunday.

Hey, since official tourist season is over, dogs are allowed on the boardwalk, and we noticed a whole bunch. Next year, we’ll bring our dog as well.

Ok….now that I have your attention.

This post is about..spiders. Yup. Not a thing about pigs though.

This time of year, the nites get a little cooler and they come indoors(spiders that is). I’ve lost count of how many wolf spiders I’ve killed in my bathroom lately. Hey, just for the record, I’m ok with spiders as long as they aren’t like really creepy and as long as they kinda stay put and don’t invade my home, you know? If they jump and run, ewwww. They are fair game. Anything inside the house is definitely fair game. So, spiders, you are warned.

With that said, I noticed the other day that we have a garden spider that has made a web on the side of the house connecting to the fence. So, it’s outside the house, but almost inside as it’s right on the outside wall. I have to say that at first it fascinated me. The web is very, very interesting and actually has a zig zag pattern in the middle. The way that the spider holds it’s legs so it appears that she has 4 wide legs instead of 8 is also really cool. I found out that Charlotte in Charlotte’s Webwas also supposedly a garden spider, also called a writing spider.

I did some research and found a cool website on Virginia spiders and also learned that WOW, there is no Virginia state spider. The website is really cool by the way.

Ok, back to our spider in the yard. She’s made 2 rather large egg sacs filled with baby spiders. EWWW. Gives you the creeps that does. We have until spring before the little buggers hatch. So, do we want hundreds of baby garden spiders aka “Charlotte’s” in our yard? Should we destroy the egg sac now or just let it be? We have until spring to decide…..

What do you think?

Well, this surprised me! Who knew there were alligators in VA Beach?

Apparently, 2 were sighted at the Beachfront over the weekend. Don’t fret, they are supposedly only 3 feet long, too small to do any damage to humans. Even though our winters are “warm”, I can’t believe they are warm enough for gators to survive.

Nevertheless, a company has been called in to “get the gator”. So far, no luck.

Hey, if you want to see video of the gator, check it out on the local newspaper’s website.

You know, Fall(as in the season Fall) used to be my favorite season. I say used to be, because, well, we really don’t get a “Fall” down here at the beach.

This is a good thing in a way as well, right now is a great time to visit! The tourists have gone home for the most part, school is starting, the rates for hotels etc are going down, and it’s still warm!

Mind you, it’s slightly chilly at nite, perhaps around 60 degrees or so, but beautiful during the day. In fact, the kids plan to go swimming today after school.

Ok, so back to Fall. I’ve noticed that the leaves never really change color, which is slightly sad. One day, you wake up in late November, and they’ve just turned brown and slowly fall off. Yup, that’s really it on this side of the state. I understand that on the western part of the state, the leaf colors are stunning. I have since learned that VA has a bunch of different climates, from temperate, to what is considered “sub-tropical”. Wow.

So, is it a good, or a bad thing? I’m looking at it as a good thing. You know, the endless summer thing is good!

Always something going on in VA Beach!

This weekend is the American Music Festival, and also the Rock N Roll Marathon.
The Marathon seems to be 1/2 party, 1/2 sports event from what I can see. The idea is that you are the “rocker” or star and you agree to “roll” for a good cause. During the 1/2 marathon, which is 1/2 of a normal marathon, participants are treated to music, food and lots of other entertainment, as are the spectators.

Frankly, the website explains it all better. I personally am intrigued by the section of the website that has a training program to get you in shape for the event. Wow. Hmmmm…maybe I should start now and walk it next year?

I’m doing research on the lovely state of Virginia and I discovered that it actually has a state insect. It amazes me that lawmakers actually take the time to declare a state insect…I can see them arguing over it;can’t you?

I know you are dying to know so I’ll tell you now that it’s the swallowtail butterfly. Now, you may say, who knew that butterflies were even insects. Well, they are.

It turns out that they really love parsley as well. I know this because we have a lot of parsley in our garden and several caterpillars on them. We looked on the internet and found out that our caterpillars are actually swallowtail larvae.

The kids are enjoying watching the caterpillars grow and we are hoping to watch them spin a chrysallis and emerge as butterflies eventually.

If you have children and they want to learn about butterflies, check out the children’s butterfly website. I’ve also seen(and we’ve personally done this before) that you can buy and watch them grow into butterflies even if you don’t have a backyard.

Sadly, on Friday, our beloved retired Seeing Eye Dog crossed the rainbow bridge. He was mentioned in my profile, so I’m taking the liberty to mention it here.:)

Zodiac was 13 1/2 and lived a full, wonderful life. He came to live with me when he was 5 weeks old, and my oldest was 6 months old. I trained him, sent him back to The Seeing Eye for training and then, got the call one day that he would eventually go blind as he had retinal dysplasia. They offered him to me as a pet. We brought Zodiac back to PA. He was a faithful friend during my horrible divorce and the ensuing years of custody battles, and he was my shoulder to cry on when my 2 oldest were diagnosed with the human version of what he had. They are both now legally blind.

He survived many a road trip with screaming kids and lived thru a van malfunction on the side of the PA turnpike when we moved to VA where he had to stay overnite with us in a hotel outside of Philadelphia. I can still see us all pushing the dog thru the slippery lobby floor in the hotel while people watched…

He volunteered time as a therapy dog at a nursing home; he was a faithful nanny and protector to my children as well as the kids of the neighborhood as well.

This is lovely you may think, but what does it have to do with VA Beach? Well, we discovered that there is a pet crematorium in VA Beach which I highly recommend. Having had other pets(also Seeing Eye Dogs) cremated, I can attest to the fact that I am most pleased with this service.

Cherish Pet Cremation Services is tucked away on a private dirt road off of London Bridge Road in VA Beach. Shirley Dale is the owner of the business and both my husband and I talked with her at length. She honestly seems to care about the pets and families that she works with. I’d also recommed checking out the website as there are links which deal with mourning and bereavement.

So, I am updating my profile folks…we live now with the ashes of 2 retired Seeing Eye Dogs.

Oh, we also visited a bunch of animal shelters this weekend(more on that later) and found our family’s new best friend: he’s a black lab mix named Chip(as in chocolate chip).

The East Coast Surfing Championchips are here in VA Beach!

I’ve heard of the event, but never actually been to it. This year, we hope to change that as the skimboard competitions start at 8am tomorrow. No, we’re not skilled enough yet to compete, but it will be fun to watch.

Check out the website here for more info.

There are a bunch of events and activities including music and refreshments.

In today’s online local newspaper, they also have a wonderful(not surfing terms, forgive me, but hey I’m not even going to pretend that I know anything about surfing other than to be able to appreciate how hard it is to do). You can check that out here–http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=130975&ran=14824
I’ll post more when we get down to check the event out.

Also, if you are here locally and want to try out some surfing, but have never surfed, look up our friend Troy Smith. He teaches surfing school right here on the beach front. He’s friendly, and flexible. You can take just one lesson if you’d like.

This past week, we made a trip to PA to see family and attend a bunch of family events. And so, we went from flat landscapes to rolling hills and lots of traffic to one lane roads.

On the way, we played games I printed off the internet. Check out this website for lots of fun games and things to keep the kids busy during those long summer car trips.

You’ll all be glad to know that we survived the trip–all 7 of us. The baby did very, very well. Yeah! It was worth it to have my 83 year old grandmom see her newest great-grandchild.

On the way, hubby and I were playing along with the scavenger hunt. It made me think about this blog. See if you can guess which state would be most likely to have such an item–PA or VA.

1. Person on a porch smoking cheap cigarettes
2. Tractor with metal “tires”
3. Fungi that glows in the dark
4. Funny cake
5. A town called Chantilly
6. A town called Virginville
7. People who say ya’ll
8. People who say “you guys”

How did you do? The odd numbered comments refer to VA and the even numbered ones are PA.

I found this link on one of the local newspaper blogs. It’s a lot of fun!

Take the quiz and see how much Southern blood shows up in your speech patterns. I had a lot of fun, and as expected, I my speech shows a strong “yankee doodle” flavor, although hey, I did get 26% Southern.

I’m learning ya’ll.