You Have Arrived.

Colonial Williamsburg.

Jamestown Settlement and Powhatan Village.

The American Revolution Museum at Yorktown.

Traveling backward and forward in time as we visited living history museum after living history museum exhausted our feet and filled up our brains. We learned new things and reinforced previous understanding by walking the streets and encampments and engaged the people around us in conversation.

I think smoke was coming out of the boys' ears. And there might have been an incident or two of total breakdown and rolling on the floor.

It was time to stop. To decompress. To process through all the information of the past days. And there is no place better to unwind than at the beach.

So we plugged the address into my GPS and waited for that red target to appear and the voice to let us know, "You have arrived."

We not only arrived at an adorable purple cottage with a little slice of heaven just steps past the back door, we arrived at the perfect spot to just sit. To be together and to enjoy each other after days of pressure and agendas.

We arrived at a place where a kid doesn't have to worry if he is allowed to touch. Or to laugh too loudly. Or run.

The kids had arrived.

And at 40+ I've finally arrived at a place in my life where I don't care.

For the first time since the twins were born I put on my bikini.

And not the one with the cute retro high waisted bottoms.

I put on my bikini because I'm 6'1", dang it, and one pieces don't even fit me that well and I'm tired of picking my bathing suit out of my crack. I put on my bikini because tankinis kind of drive me nuts, the way they flutter up around my middle when I'm actually in the water.

I put on my bikini because I'm tired of believing that stretch marks, extra skin, and a "broken" belly button are things that need to be hidden. This is my body. And it is a body that stretched and grew 3 babies -- 2 at the same time, for goodness sake. And if I can't admit that 15 pounds of twins growing inside me might have stretched out the skin on my stomach and left me with an outtie rather than an innie, well, that's just dumb.

I put on my bikini because it's important for me to believe that my body is normal. That my body is nothing to be ashamed of. And it's important for my boys to know that, too. Normal is not what they will grow up seeing on TV and in the magazines. Normal comes in all shapes and sizes. Reality ages and gets stretched out.

This is what reality looks like. In a bikini.

I have arrived.

(But not quite at the place where I will be posting a photo of myself in a bikini online)