Not many people can say they live in a resort town.  Not many people can say they grew up in a resort town.  Yet I can!

Virginia Beach, VA has been a place where I have called home for the past 30 some years.  My friends who have grown up here have mostly come back to raise their families.  Many of my friends who live elsewhere have always commented how wonderful it must be to live in a beach city of 35 miles of beautiful coastline, succulent seafood, and year round recreational activities. 

So what is it about Virginia Beach that makes it so irresistible to live and visit?  It is the natural ability for the city to allow families to “love the moment” when they are here.

Photo from Virginia Beach CVB

Virginia Beach is the perfect family vacation spot. It has affordability, variety, and something for everyone.  Here is a snapshot of  my family’s favorite ways to love the moment in Virginia Beach.

1.  Brunch it!  My family loves brunch.  Especially when you are wanting to relax and sleep in on the weekend, brunch is a great way to get your day started.  Try Doc Taylor’s or Pocahontas Pancakes  for inexpensive breakfast fare at the Oceanfront.  If you want to get a bit fancier or want to have an extreme breakfast buffet, try Tradewinds restaurant at the Virginia Beach Resort Hotel and Conference Center.  Their Sunday brunch menu has some decadent items such as smoked salmon and a yellow tuna searing station.  However, my family’s favorite is the make-it-your-donut station where you can pipe out your own donut into the deep fryer!  If you are a foodie at heart, one thing I’ve wanted to try is Coastal Food Tours of Virginia.  I’ve heard it is a great way to sample local handmade and homemade delicacies as well as learn about local history and culture.  To see pics of other eateries in Virginia Beach, check out my other blog Spoon on the Groove.

2.  Hit the beach!  This is a no-brainer of course.  Virginia Beach offers 3 ways to enjoy the natural waters including access to the Chesapeake Bay, resort area, and Sandbridge Beach.  My personal favorite is Sandbridge Beach because it is more tranquil and isolated.  If you want to hit the beach where you can drive pretty close to sand dunes, this is the place to go.  If you don’t rent a beach home at Sandbridge, public parking is available at the corner of Sandbridge and Sandfiddler Road as well as at Little Island Park.  Spending the day at Little Island Park is one of our favorite things to do!  There is lots of parking, barbecue grills, nice bath houses, a playground for the kids, a 400 ft fishing pier, and more.  It is right near Back Bay where you can go canoeing and kayaking.

Photo from Virginia Beach CVB

Sandbridge Dunes-Photo from Virginia Beach CVB

3.  Play in the Water!  I don’t just mean swim in it.  Virginia Beach offers so many recreational activities.  It is the perfect opportunity to try paddle boarding, kayaking, jet skiing, and parasailing.  If you aren’t the one to venture into a water sport, try a dolphin cruise at the Rudee Inlet with Rudee Tours.  My kids absolutely enjoyed seeing tons of dolphins swimming alongside the boat!  One thing I still definitely want to try is riding the Rudee Rocket speedboat, also at the Rudee Inlet. 

I’m so excited because I have a few Groupons to try out stand-up paddleboarding in the narrows of Seashore State Park and kayaking with dolphins!  I’ll blog about that soon!

Photo from Virginia Beach CVB

4.  Get rural!  Virginia Beach isn’t just home to amusement parks and beaches.  The southern part of the city has numerous farms where you can go pick your own harvest of goodies.  The spring is the perfect time to come down to pick big red juicy strawberries!  Bring a grocery bag, bowl, or beach pail (it doesn’t matter!) and come down to pick your own fresh and natural snacks.  The Pungo Strawberry Festival at the end of May celebrates the strawberry season complete with carnival rides, pig races, strawberry pies, and more!  After you go strawberry picking, stop by Hunt Club Farm, a local petting farm.  My kids love feeding the goats!  You can also enter a chicken coop and pick up baby chickens.   The llama and peacock are my personal favorites!

Photo from Virginia Beach CVB

5.  Check out free entertainment!  The summertime at the oceanfront brings tons of free family friendly entertainment through BeachStreetUSA.  In addition to events like the She Crab Classic and festivals like the Latin Festival and Caribbean Music Festival, BeachStreet USA also lines up local musicians and entertainers along different streets at the oceanfront to perform to the public.  Taking a nice stroll with the family in the afternoon/evening can provide you with free entertainment you’d normally have to pay for elsewhere.  Virginia Beach Town Center also has “Entertainment on the Plaza” which also provides free entertainment to the public on select dates.  Located in the center of Virginia Beach, Town Center houses popular restaurants like the Cheesecake Factory and Ruth’s Chris as well as the Funny Bone Comedy Club.  It’s a nice way to spend the evening on the town.

You can find even more things to do in Virginia Beach here.  If you are planning a trip to Virginia Beach, the best place to start is the Virginia Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau.  Also, don’t forget to like the Virginia Beach Facebook page to get updates on events and latest happenings for your trip!

 
So what are you waiting for?  Come visit Virginia Beach!

I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Virginia Beach blogging program. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

Day two of our spring break trip was visiting Hershey Park, the amusement park of the Hershey attraction complex.  I have been to many amusement parks-Disney, Universal, Six Flaggs, Busch Gardens.  My assumption of Hershey Park prior to going was that it was going to be small in comparison to what I was used to.  The day prior I had taken a trolley tour with Hershey Chocolate World and saw the outside of the park, which looked rather small from the outside:

Let me just say that when we got into the park, it far exceeded my lowered expectations. 

I was thinking we’d be done with the park halfway through the day, but that was definitely not the case!  We came on one of the “Spring in the Park” weekends.  I guess you can call a soft opening because they didn’t have all of live strolling entertainment they will have starting the official season opening in May.  But it was truly a blessing going on this weekend because the park was so empty! 

We were little kids again.

The weather was sunny and gorgeous.  The whole first half of the day we experienced virtually no lines.  The hubby and I kept repeating that being at the park reminded us of what amusement parks were like when we were little.  It wasn’t too crowded.  You didn’t have to wait in insane lines to get on a ride, buy an ice cream, or struggle to find a place to sit to eat decent food.  The roller coasters were all classic and reasonable for my family to ride.  There weren’t death-defying rides that would make you pass out while waiting in line.  It was really quaint, classic, and timeless.

There was a relaxing monorail ride that went around the park and even took you outside the park to pass the real Hershey factory.  It was interesting to see the place where 900 Hershey are made a minute, leading to 33 million a day!

An added bonus that I wasn’t aware of was the addition of ZooAmerica included with your admission to the park.  This is basically a zoo within the park.  I’ve been to many zoos and was scared this would be a sad collection of animals in cages.  However, I was impressed with the variety and opportunity to see the animals so close.

Here’s a lynx, which my hubby kept calling “a cat with devilish horns”.  Looks so cool!

This is me in comparison to the average heights of a polar bear and brown bear.  I don’t stand a chance!

I would have taken more pics, but the hubby told me to keep my DSLR at the hotel so we could just enjoy the day.  That is definitely what we did folks!

After a few days of rest, we decided we could squeeze in a trip to Hershey before the break was over!

The drive to Hershey from the south can make you feel like you are driving to the middle of nowhere.  However, seeing the rolling hills of Pennsylvania is rather calming.

The town of Derry Township/Hershey is quaint and small.  If you are used to an Orlando, FL type atmosphere when you are not at the park, you will not find it here.  Very quiet.  You can find your standard chain restaurants.  Harrisburg is the closets city, but it is sufficient to commit your stay to enjoying the area of Hershey.

Our first day we went to Hershey’s Chocolate World.  This is like a museum of everything Hershey.  It is directly adjacent to Hershey Park, but is not included in Hershey Park admission.  Once in, you’ll see that you can buy a customized ticket according to what you want to see.  There is a free slow moving “ride” that walks you through the process of how chocolate is made, a 3D movie, a chocolate tasting, and a “build your own chocolate bar” experience, a trolley guided tour ride throughout Derry Township, and more.  You don’t have to do all of these attractions, however, I thought every single one was worth it.  We paid for all of them and our individual ticket price was roughly $30-40 each.  When you buy your ticket, you receive an itinerary for all of the attractions.  This is great because you don’t have to wait in lines!* 

*Parent note:  Depending on how many attractions you have, your itinerary may overlap through lunch.  This happened to us and my youngest almost had a meltdown because we didn’t eat lunch until almost 2PM!

Hershey’s Great American Chocolate Tour Ride (FREE)

We liked this ride so much that we went through it twice!  You board a slow-moving pod that walks you through how chocolate is made, from cacao nuts to all the refining processes.  Throughout the ride you hear the lovely voices of the “hosts”, dairy cows Gabby, Harmony, and Olympia!

Create Your Own Candy Bar

We had a blast making our own candy bars!  This probably was the longest line to go through, but it was fun!  They gave us aprons, gloves, and hats prior to starting the candy bar making process.

The process included selecting “inclusions” in your bar via a computer kiosk.  We could add three out of a variety of inclusions including rasperries, butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, peanuts, almonds, and pralines.  Next we watched our creation get made on a conveyor belt.  Your name came up on a screen so you could identify which bar was yours as it was being made.

You even got to design the packaging.  Here’s mine!

Chocolate Tasting Adventure

I originally thought the chocolate tasting was going to be a chance to taste only exotic chocolates.  It did include one artisan Scharffen Berger milk chocolate.  However, most of the tasting samples were the classic Hershey chocolates.  What made it interesting was that they taught us how to savor the chocolate, understand the differences with types of dark chocolate, and other interesting production facts of the chocolate we love.  For example, the Hershey Bliss line of chocolates is made of 50% cacao and takes 10-20 days to make.  An artisan chocoalte has a higher cacao percentage and can make up to 30 days to make.  Aside from the learning, you got to eat and keep all of the samples! 

Trolley Works Tour

I thought this was one of the most interesting parts of the day.  We rode a trolley with a tour guide through Derry Township and got to pass by the real Hershey factory, Milton Hershey’s home/birthplace, and the Milton Hershey School.  I wasn’t aware that Milton Hershey had established a private school for underprivileged children.  Mr. and Mrs. Hershey could not have children and noticed that the orphanages all had a majority of boys.  So they started their own school where several of the boys lived with them, attended school with Mrs. Hershey, and worked on the dairy farms.  Girls were finally admitted in 1977.  But today, the principles are still the same.  Underprivileged children from all over live in beautiful homes with “host parents”.  The Milton Hershey School consists of a separate elementary, middle, and high school.  Even more amazing is that prior to his death, Milton Hershey signed over the majority of the stake of his company to the Milton Hershey school.  Therefore, every candy bar you buy directly benefits the Milton Hershey school and students.

Me and the hubby on the trolley tour.

We even had the chance to step off the trolley and tour Founder’s Hall at the Milton Hershey School.  Gorgeous!

Parent note:  The trolley tour includes multiple passing of samples of different types of Hershey candies as they tell Hershey’s story…make sure there is room in your bags for this!

Although I thought we would only spend a few hours at Chocolate World, we ended up spending the majority of the day there.  I think we got caught up buying souvenirs and chocolate confections from the large chocolate store!  With the free samples, purchases, and more, we definitely had lots of chocolate to chomp on for weeks to come!

Where did we leave off?  Oh yes, I was about to have surgery.

And that I did.

This is a pic of me about an hour after having a hysteroscopy.  A hyster what?  A hysteroscopy.  In our efforts to get my PCOS symptoms under control, my reproductive endocrinologist suggested I have a hysteroscopy to see what is actually going on with my lady parts…adhesions?  polyps? endometriosis?  The procedure included inserting a scope just like in a colonscopy, taking pics, removing any polyps, and performing a dilation and curretage.  It’s pretty routine and minor surgery, but it was my first “surgery” ever.

Don’t I look sleepy?

The hubby took pics of me in the hospital, but upon review, I look like a hot mess.  Not something I want to immortalize online.  Let me just say that propofol gives you the BEST SLEEP EVER!

Once in the OR, I remember the anesthesiologist telling me he was now going to give me the “good stuff” a.k.a. propofol.  I could feel the burn in my IV.  Within seconds I remember cracking what I thought were jokes regarding propofol and Michael Jackson.  But all I got in return were blank stares from the OR team.  I must have been 90% to lala land.

Next thing I know, I am in recovery.  Amazing!

So afterwards, my hungry hubby insisted we eat breakfast somewhere quick.  So above is me chomping on my dessert, apple pie.  The restaurant we went to had a special running where everyone got a free slice of one of their pies.  I think I almost fell asleep in mine.

So if you are wondering what the results of the surgery were, I received them a few days ago.  Everything was good.  Several polyps were found near the opening to my left ovary (my only active ovary, if you can call ovulating maybe a few times a year as active).   Pathology reports indicated everything was benign (whew!).  Other than that, I passed with flying colors.

Exhale.

http://instagr.am/p/JBRSbqGWyM/

My reflection today was very decorated with “What am I going to accomplish for this next year of my life?”.  I wrestled all day with pseudo resolutions, expectations, 38 X 38 lists and came to the same conclusion:  I don’t want to set up myself for failure.  Does that sound pessimistic? I think it is more realistic. 

What I want to do instead is reflect on what I know for sure.  Okay, so maybe I’ve taken it from Oprah’s reflection page in every issue of O Magazine.  But I like to think of it as an inspiration, rather than a stealing =)

So what I know for sure at age 37:

Life cannot be planned.  What you expect will be may not always come to fruition.  My childhood was full of wonder at the big world ahead of me.  My teens were full of stumbling at what I thought the world was supposed to be.  The 20s were full of excitement as I felt comfortable dancing in new experiences.  My 30s so far have been more of a juggle and stress.  It has made me question who I am, what my purpose is, and whether or not I am living to fulfill that.  I’m still there at 37.  But what I do know for sure, is that this past year has instilled hope again at what life is giving me and confidence that life is good, because He is good.

This past year I wrestled with health issues and job issues.  Two days after my 37th birthday, I am about to embark on more invasive procedures to resolve my health issues.  I’m hoping this will be a turning point.  I also am more happy at work.  My work environment has been flipped upside down and improved 200%.  The past year my relationship with my husband continued to get stronger, my mothering of my daughters has started to change to more of a mentorship role as they’ve matured a bit more.  Most importantly, I’m living life again.  I’ve just started venturing into things I’ve always wanted to try, taste, and see. 

This upcoming year of my life I only know the following:

I will celebrate my 12 year of marriage to my loving husband.

My oldest will start middle school (yikes!).

Whatever else happens is up to Him.  And I’m stoked!

This weekend was my first oyster roast.  It was a fundraiser at the beach to support the school system.  I was fortunate enough to receive a ticket as a gift from my administration.  Last week we had our accreditation review and I served on the committee. 

So what is an oyster roast?  I Googled to educate myself:  Oyster Roast FAQ and Etiquette Guide from About.com.  I was ready to have to shuck oysters and get my hands and nails all gritty and fishy smelling!

But no, it was a very swanky event.  The above was the already plated raw oysters you could pick up from the food line with ease.  Totally makes sense since hundreds of people were at the event…what was I thinking???!  Raw oysters you ask?  I ate it.  I liked it.  It was delicious!

I also ate this.  Yummy!

Took this picture with my coworkers and Mrs. Emily Tilley (directly to my right), who was a very respected teacher, coach, and administrator of the school system.  She coached field hockey and had a 98-2-7 career record.  She also was the first female administrator as well as the first female principal for the district.  She’s an amazing lady and she is still as active in the school system as ever!

Great music was provided by the band Butter.

There was free beer, food, wine, and hawaiian ice (nice!).  It was a great event and I hope the Virginia Beach Education Foundation raised a significant amount to support the schools and students!

Today I attended a cooking class at a local mom and pop restaurant, Sabor Express.  The cuisine is New Mexican and Native American.  I had never had Native American food before, so I was pretty excited to try it out.  Thanks to a Living Social deal, I jumped on the opportunity to do this with my husband!  *And big thanks to my dad for taking my kids out to see The Lorax while we did this!*

The restaurant was decorated with elaborate, bright, and vibrant murals that were so beautiful to the eye.  If I was good at creative murals, I’d totally do this to my house.  But I’m not, so I’ll just keep eating here to enjoy them =)

The chef/teacher was Treecy (possibly a misspelling?  I didn’t think to get her business card) who was a one woman non-stop hostess with the mostess.  This woman had such a positive and warm energy to her.  She started the class discussing her journey towards appreciating the New Mexican and Native American cultures.  As a tribute, she had us each briefly describe ourselves from which she gave us a name.  My husband was “Peaceful Stone” and my name was “Peaceful Teacher”.  She said there was a calm and peaceful energy exuded by both me and my husband.  Really?  I guess so =)  That’s flattering.

We started our cooking adventure with making a fresh fruity beverage.  So delicious!  It was made with orange juice, lime juice, strawberries, and grapefruit blended together.  We used orange and lime juice from concentrate, but she advised fresh was best!

Next we made Indian Fry Bread from scratch.  I had seen this done on TV, but actually never made it or ate it.  So this was a real treat.  If I remember correctly, the recipe for the dough was as follows:

2 c. self-rising flour

1 tbs baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

warm water

I’m probably missing something here, but I think that was it.  We mixed the dry ingredients together and formed a well in the middle.  We slowly poured warm water into the well, stopping to incorporate the dry ingredients until it was think enough to form a doughy ball.  Mine was pretty wet and I was too cautious with the amount of flour I was adding to even it out. 

While our dough was resting, she fried up fresh tortilla chips (if I wasn’t scared of deep frying, I’d totally do this and stop buying the cheap bagged stuff) and made fresh salsa (onion, tomato, avocado, oregano, cumin, cilantro, and peppers. 

We finally fried our fry bread and topped with a ground beef mixture that had been cooking for hours.  We also layered a 13 bean mixture (she put practically every bean imaginable) that had been simmering since the day before), a green chile sauce, cheese, lettuce, and the salsa.  And there you go…an Indian Taco:

It was so savory, spicy, and easy to make.  We were so thankful because she sent everyone home with a batch of ingredients and our leftover dough so we could make these at home!

Me and the hubs with our aprons.  I chose red of course, my favorite color!

Thanks for a great time!

Lessons Learned:  Some revelations about cooking from Treecy…

Our bodies are not made to digest meat.  The longer you cook meat and break down the muscle, the easier it is for our bodies to digest.

The spices found in the hispanic/latino section of the supermarket tend to taste the best and are the freshest.  We sampled cumin and oregano from different groceries and there was a DRASTIC difference.

The more color you have in your dish, the healthier it is.

This is what greeted me on Saturday, March 17, 2012.  My youngest had drawn this on her dry erase board as a celebratory sign for the family.  I love her!

On St. Patricks day my oldest ran her first “race”…it was a one mile race to benefit Operation Smile.  It was crazy crowded!  I believe 4,500 students registered for the race.  If you add their parents, it was like the scene from War of the Worlds where everyone was trying to escape.

I was so proud of my daughter!  She ran the mile in about 9 minutes!  Made me think I should start running again so that we could enjoy races together.  Maybe I can get my butt and muffin top in gear to run a 5K by the fall?  After the race, we hung out at the beach and I took pictures.  Unfortunately, in my urgency to try to capture great pics, I didn’t realize how close I was getting to the water.

I saw this girl and asked if I could take a pic of her tatoo:  “WTF?  Where’s the Finish?”  Gotta love it!

Afterwards, we went to a friend’s birthday party.  But before then, I took a pit stop at the local Books A Million to catch a glimpse of The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond.  I love, love, LOVE her cooking!  She came for a book signing for The Pioneer Woman Cooks:  Food from My Frontier.  I was introduced to her book by a friend who absolutely is the best cook!  Everything she cooks tastes like it is from heaven and should be served to the gods.  She said most of her recipes came from Ree’s first cookbook.  The Pioneer Woman Cooks:  Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl.  I initially joked her and asked if she cooked all of it in her backyard in a whole in the ground after milking her cow.  But I soon ate my words when I caught on to Ree’s blog and tried recipes first hand.  Simple yet amazing!

Unfortunately the line was crazy long (wrapped around the store and even up the walls).  So I didn’t get a chance to meet her.  *sigh*

All in all…what a lovely day!