I’m lucky enough to have unlimited PTO. I should remember to take a buffer day after traveling and family vacations. It’s a lot traveling with 3-4 kids and 2 dogs, even just to go to the eastern shore for a few days. Coming back and going to work the very next morning sucks.
Anyway, we did have a great time on our little extended weekend trip and only got moderate sunburns. We took our three youngest girls, the 16-year-old twins and the 11-year-old, to my wife’s parents’ house on the eastern shore of Virginia, near Chincoteague. You may have heard of it, or you may have heard of Assateague. Both areas are famous for their wild ponies.
We spent some time on the first day at the community pool. When we got back to the house, we got out the kayaks and paddleboards and the kids had some fun paddling around the canal. Then we went down to Chincoteague Island where we got dinner at the Ropewalk restaurant and did some souvenir shopping. The remaining days were rainy most of the time, but we managed to find time to take a little tour on my father-in-law’s boat out on the bay around Chincoteague Island. I took my camera out in film simulation mode and got some pretty cool photos. You can see those here. One night we had a lot of fun playing some PG-13 alternative to Cards Against Humanity that I can’t remember the name of. The kids and I enjoyed making Nana read the inappropriate cards.
Saturday we went up to Ocean City, MD to get lunch and walk the boardwalk. We squeezed in some souvenir shopping and arcade games before it started to rain. We wanted to do some of the rides and the ferris wheel but it was pouring. We grabbed ice cream on the way out and two of the kids came home with hermit crabs. We were amused at the number of “I <3 Hawk Tuah” t-shirts for sale on the boardwalk. The rest of the evening was mostly spent chilling and chatting on the deck. We got home on Sunday afternoon, and the twins went back to their mom’s to prepare for their trip to Virginia Beach with her this week. We don’t have any more trips planned right now, but my wife and I might take an extended weekend trip to Asheville, NC in the fall.