WASHINGTON – Jill Biden is getting a day at the beach for her 70th birthday.
President Joe Biden and his wife went to their Delaware beach house to help the first lady celebrate her milestone birthday on Thursday. The first lady was already at the house in Rehoboth Beach when the president arrived Wednesday evening.
Recommended Videos
She planned to spend a quiet birthday at home with the president, said Michael LaRosa, the first lady's spokesperson.
The trip was a rare midweek getaway from the White House by a president. It also was Biden's first visit to the couple's vacation home since he took office in January.
The Bidens were expected back at the White House on Friday.
Jill Biden, a longtime community college English professor, recently finished virtually teaching a course at Northern Virginia Community College. She won't be teaching over the summer.
Biden often talks about how proud he is of his wife of nearly 44 years.
“Teaching is not what Jill does. Teaching is who she is,” Biden said last week, echoing his wife's own description of herself. “And she's done it her whole adult life, and she's still doing it.”
She had pledged to keep teaching if she became first lady.
“But I don't think she bargained for having to teach online initially," Biden joked, adding that she spent a lot of time, “four hours a day for about a month,” learning how to teach virtually, as most schooling was done that way during the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden bought the beach house for $2.7 million in 2017, after leaving the vice presidency and aided by a $8 million multibook deal that he and his wife signed.
The house is on a cul-de-sac in North Shores, just north of the beach resort. It has a swimming pool that overlooks Cape Henlopen State Park, where Biden's helicopter landed Wednesday. The house is blocks from the Atlantic Ocean and a short drive from downtown Rehoboth Beach.
The Bidens moved in less than two years after their son Beau, a former Delaware attorney general and Delaware Army National Guard member, died of brain cancer in May 2015. One sign on the house says “Beau’s gift"; another sign reads “Forever Jill.”
Jill Biden told Vogue magazine that her husband had promised her that “when I write my book, I'll buy you a beach house.”
“I wanted it to be the kind of place where you can come in in your wet bathing suit and bare feet and I can just take the broom and brush out the sand," she told Vogue for the March 2020 article. "And that’s what this is. Everything’s easy.”
Joe Biden spent time in Rehoboth Beach during the 2020 presidential campaign, including after the Democratic National Convention and after becoming president-elect.
Biden so far has spent most weekends as president at his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
___
Superville reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.