Vacation! Busch Gardens, Williamsburg, VA & Deep Creek Lake, MD

Vacation is such a deliciously, deceivingly short, delightful time. For the last few years, we have taken time off around Labor Day & this year was no exception. I’m just, not even sure how it’s over already!

This year, for our family vacation, our options were limited. With me being pregnant, that automatically ruled out any crazy roller coaster tours & I really did not want to fly anywhere. We originally just planned to spend an entire week at the Lake House in Deep Creek Lake, MD, but then my Mom found a crazy good deal to go visit Busch Gardens. It was literally an insane deal that included our hotel, our park tickets (to both Busch Gardens & Water Country USA), free parking, plus 2 meals inside the parks (per person). We couldn’t pass it up!

We seriously had the most wonderful, fabulous time. And, nothing like the timing of this post, am I right? I mean, as this is posting tonight, the East Coast is getting slammed by the craziest hurricane ever! It’s mind-blowing to me that we were in the ocean & enjoying some of the areas that are getting absolutely pummeled right now – just 2 weeks ago. In hindsight, I have never been so thankful for 98º weather (but, I’ll get to that).

My Mom, Ruby, Braelynn & I officially started our vacation a few days early – we left on Thursday morning. As we were loading up the car, Braelynn hopped in the driver’s seat & buckled herself in. Then she declared that she would do all the driving on our vacation & further stated: “It’s okay if my feet don’t reach the pedals, right Mom?”

(side note: the images in this post are a mix of iPhone 7 photos and photos from my DSLR – you’ll probably be able to tell the difference, but just in case you were wondering why the quality of some is so different from the quality of others – that’s why)

Derrick, my Dad, & Stephen followed us down to the Lake House on Friday night after work. Then we all got up Saturday morning & set out for Virginia! Our Busch Gardens reservations didn’t start until Sunday afternoon, but we wanted to go visit the beach while we were there. Based on some suggestions from my Mom’s niece, we knew that we wanted to go to Yorktown Beach on Sunday morning. But, once we got into the area on Saturday night, we had a few hours until everyone would be ready for bed, so we set out to find the ocean! Braelynn drew us a map while we were getting set up in the hotel room:

Sunday morning, we all got up & headed to Yorktown Beach. It was amazing. It was quiet (we almost felt like we had the whole place to ourselves), calm (since it was on the bay instead of the ocean), and clean. Braelynn loved the beach! She is definitely a beach babe! She loved the sand, loved the water – she loved it all. It was such a relaxing, wonderful morning!

We had lunch at the famous Captain George’s Seafood Buffet (my Dad’s one request for our trip) and then made our way over to our hotel at Busch Gardens. Since it was the end of their Oktoberfest celebrations, there were fireworks planned for that night & we were excited to kick off our time in the park with such a bang (pun totally intended!)

Derrick added 2 new coasters to his roller coaster count on this trip – Tempesto was one of them!

Monday morning we got up and went to Water Country USA. Braelynn rode her first big water slides there! She was so brave (and this Mama was unable to really ride anything other than the lazy river, so she was just standing at the bottom of the slides with anxiety over her baby girl riding such big rides!) We spent about half of the day there & then made our way over to Busch Gardens for the rest of the afternoon.

It was hot. As in, almost unbearably hot. The temps were in the upper 90’s every single day we were there & our weather apps were telling us that it “felt like” it was upwards of 103º. If there was any park to hang out in in such horrid temperatures, it’s Busch Gardens. Not only is the park beautiful, but it’s landscaped so well – almost every single pathway is shaded & they really take care of their guests!!

The “kiddie coaster” at Busch Gardens is definitely the biggest coaster Braelynn has ever been on! She actually rode it, with Derrick, in the dark, the first night we were there! It was a bit terrifying. Thankfully, she was willing to ride it again in the daylight the next day, but she was still just a bit unsure (let me reiterate, it’s actually a really big ride!) She ended up riding it several more times over the day & a half that we were there & when we left, she claimed it as her “favorite ride”.

Tuesday was Busch Gardens day. Another wonderful thing about Busch Gardens is how big the park actually is – it’s huge! We spent several hours there Sunday night, all afternoon Monday, and all day Tuesday, and we still didn’t do it all!

With the weather being so unbelievably hot, I was sure to pack Braelynn’s swimsuit for Tuesday. Busch Gardens has 2 splash pads for little ones & we knew that not only would Braelynn want to play in the water – she would need to play in the water to help combat the heat. She had a blast (& I just sat watching her, wishing that I had brought my swimsuit along too)!

On Tuesday afternoon, my Mom’s niece (the one who told us about Yorktown Beach) & her little guy came over to meet us at the park for a few hours. Braelynn had so much fun riding with her newfound cousin Cooper!

Hotel life is the best life – seriously how much better does it get than jumping on the bed, building up pillow forts, and eating donuts in bed?! And Mama doesn’t have to clean up any of it?! Absolutely priceless!

And with the Virginia leg of our trip over, we all headed back up to the Lake House for the remainder of our time away! The days were absolutely perfect – not quite as warm as Virginia, but still on the “unseasonably” warm spectrum for Deep Creek Lake!

Braelynn took a ride in the tube for the first time!! She’s such a brave girl – her only request was that Grandpa drive the boat “slow” so she didn’t fall out of the tube. He happily obliged.

Looking for something to do on Friday, we decided to go to Hovatter’s Zoo! It’s somewhere we have all heard about, but being about an hour away, just never seemed to make it over to. It did not disappoint! It is such a cool & unique place – you can feed just about all of the animals there – including the giraffes!! We had so much fun there!

If you ever go, just be warned that the monkeys will supposedly throw poop at you if provoked (my Dad tried to tease them, but I guess it was just too hot), and the Siberian Tiger will pee on you if you put off too much testosterone (at least, that’s the reasoning we keep laughing about since he specifically walked over to my Dad & Steve standing at the fence & peed on them!) We all simply died laughing!

Labor Day weekend brought Ellen, Jonathan, and Alethea to the Lake House – and my Grandpa surprised us all by coming down Sunday afternoon!! He hasn’t been down to the Lake House in a few years, so it was so nice that he was able to come for the afternoon & sit by the Lake!

I’m still kind of in shock that it’s all over & that summer is “over” too. Where does the time go?