Virginia Beach

Here we are in Virginia Beach. As you can see by the map, this is very much a military town. We are staying just north of Oceana Naval Air Station, right off of I-264 and First Colonial. Brett is working on the Little Creek Amphibious Base north of us, right on the Chesapeake Bay. We are continually buzzed by fighter planes--which I have to admit, despite my pacifist leanings, I absolutely love. But not as much as I love the swimming pool in our apartment complex, and I haven't even been in it yet myself. For the kids, it is a perfect summer hangout--it is warm enough for swimming pretty much every day, any time, and the pool is only 4 feet deep at the deepest point. They are loving it. Maya is turning into a little fish, and Jonah is getting much more comfortable and is even starting to blow bubbles (huge progress--a month ago he wasn't even putting on his bathing suit and since he fell in a couple years ago he won't put his face under).
The journey here was not so bad--It took us about 10 hours, which was longer than the 7 we expected. We forgot to add to our calculations the reliable extra hour to get out of Manhattan and the extra stops required by having a baby. The big kids, Brett and the dog were in the rented SUV, and Simon and I were in the little Honda. They all traveled just beautifully. Simon likes the car, except in long stretches of stop and go, and we took breaks whenever anyone needed them, so the driving itself went fine. The packing and getting out of the city was torturous, as always. Ugh. So hard to use an NYC apartment as a staging ground to go anywhere. Everything in that regard is high maintenance. You can't leave cars parked alone, there is no place to store anything temporarily, and picking up cars from the airport always takes forever, and that is before your real journey even starts. Then there is the tunnel getting out of the city. Leaving for as long as we will be gone requires attention to things you don't usually have to consider, like the refrigerator, plants, mail, cleaning, laundry etc. Much of this we had to do with a crying baby in one hand--Simon has an uncanny ability to pick up on our stress and decide to have unexplained crying jags during this time. Suffice it to say Brett and I were sweating and all strung out before we even began. The driving was actually calming, once we got out of New York.
So we arrived very late the night of the 3rd. We haven't done a whole lot of exploring the area yet--mostly have been settling in, enjoying the pool and getting our bearings. Today the kids and I went to a homeschooler's park day and did a bunch of errands--restocking our usual craft supplies, getting more pool toys and hanging out at the bookstore. Brett has been busily preparing for this job--his actual field work begins tomorrow.
The three kid thing has been cutting into my computer time significantly. Where does all the time go?