Beach Day

My friend Cassy is visiting Virginia Beach for the weekend. She loves the beach, whereas I go maybe once a year (usually because she's here and wants to go) even though I live a few minutes from it. So today, we visited the beach! (First we went to the DMV but that was not fun.)

This was supposed to have dolphins in the water behind Stella, but I think I missed them.

Stella says: "Don't forget your sunscreen!"

Ah, right at home for a wee little octopus! Sun, sand, and surf.

In the shade under the umbrella!

Cassy needed to submit a photo to her book of the month club
using this silly straw and their book of the month! (I actually was
reading the book, because I forgot to bring one with me,
and it's really good so far!)

Cassy shared the book with me, so I shared with Stella!

Making new friends with Cassy!

They're so silly.

We had a great time at the beach! We planned to leave around 2-2:30, and we heard the first rumbles of thunder at 2:20, so that was perfect timing!

Mt. Trashmore

Sounds like a joke, right? But Mt. Trashmore is the highest point in Virginia Beach. It used to be a landfill, and they sealed it up tight and covered it with grass and slapped a park on top of it, with Kids' Cover (a playground area) and a skate park, and several walk/run/bike paths.

Today, there was a 5K there (which I did not know when I chose to go there) and I think everyone else in Virginia Beach was there too! There was some cloud cover when we got there so it wasn't horribly oppressive (oh, the humidity!).

Our primary objective was to catch some Pokemon.
My coworker, who runs, told me he got a Dratini at
Mt Trashmore, but I didn't run across any today.

The stairs to the top

The view toward "downtown" from the top

Ahh, relaxing on the grass after climbing all those steps.
(I don't know what Stella needs to relax for; I carried her!)

There's also a Lake Trashmore. It, however, is not full of trash. It's actually quite lovely.

Memorial Day Weekend

What a lovely holiday weekend! A few days off was exactly what we needed to re-energize us. We did a little bit of everything...

We did a little cleaning
(the stop motion gif is an idea I stole directly
from Haylie and Anana!)

We did a little sewing
(Stella made friends with my narwhal pincushion!)

We went to a friend's birthday party and ate a little potato salad
(She wanted a "theme" of potato salad: You're seeing SEVEN different
types of potato salad, plus a pork roast and bacon beans)

We did a little gaming
(My husband won... I haven't beaten him at this game (Pandemic: Contagion) yet!)

We did a little baking...

...and a little eating!
(Those are puff pastry pinwheels that should have been more loosely rolled,
because they didn't have room to expand and got really dense. Yummy though!)

We did a little rain-watching
(Tropical Storm (or Depression, I've lost track) Bonnie
came to visit for Memorial Day)

And we did a little cosplay touch-up
(you'll see what this thing is for in a few days!)

And with that, our three-day weekend is over. But we only have a three-day work week as well, because we're taking Friday off for Awesomecon in DC (which is also three days)!