A Day at the Beach 2

We were able to squeeze a second visit to the beach in before my cousins and Claire went back to school. It was a gorgeous and fun day!!! My aunt, cousins and cousin's children always make us feel so welcome. We arrived around 11 am and stayed the entire day. After having pizza for dinner, Claire and I left for home around 9 pm.

Claire and Scott building a sand castle.

Claire and Tiffany
(Claire picked Tiffany's bathing suit out so they would match!)

Buried in the sand

10:53 pm -- Almost home!

A Day at the Beach

We made our yearly trek down the shore today to visit my aunt and cousins. The drive down was filled with little pockets of traffic which resulted in a 2 hour and 45 minute trip. The kids were great in the car and only asked "Are we there yet?" a few times.

The day was filled with playing in the sand, wading in the waves, swimming, building a a big sand structure for tennis balls to roll down, throwing water balloons and "sand bombs," squirting squirt guns and running from the waves. We even saw tons of dolphins swimming through the water, although, only their fins were visible.

After a full day at the beach, we left around 7:00 so we'd beat rush hour traffic. On the way home, Claire said, "Can I close my eyes for a few minutes?" She was so exhausted after such a fun day.

According to Claire, my aunt made her promise to come back again this summer. We look forward to a second trip before summer ends. Promising to go back to the beach is a promise that's easy to keep!

A Visit to the Shore

Today, we loaded up the minivan and drove for a few hours down to the Jersey Shore. It was an overcast day, but we decided to head down anyway because it was a day when we would be able to see Jaci, Scott and Tiffany since everyone was off from work. We ended up hanging out in the beach house all day since it drizzled a little here and there and, when asked if they wanted to go to the beach, both Claire and Ryan said, "No." That is, until we were packing up the car to go home when they both said, "But we didn't go to the beach yet!" Needless to say, the kids were busy having a great time!* We hope to get back down again before the summer ends.

Debbie and Tiffany putting a "boing" (hair wrap) in Claire's hair.

*Of course, I just realized that I hardly took any pictures today. :(

OBX

We just returned from 7 days in OBX (aka the Outer Banks in North Carolina). It was a wonderful week! We stayed at a great house with 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, pool, rec room and an elevator. It was very comfortable for the 9 of us. While I wanted to spend every day lounging on the beach with my feet in the sand and swimming in the salty sea, the kids had other plans. They wanted to spend every minute in the pool jumping, swimming and splashing around. We
did manage to go to the beach twice, as a group, but in all honesty, schlepping beach chairs, umbrellas, towels, sand toys, a cooler and other beach necessities 2300 ft. was a bit of a hassle. Next time we will definitely plan early so we can get beach front accommodations!


Our days were spent relaxing and enjoying being together. We also ate some amazing meals: Homemade pizza, coxinha, lasagne, shrimp scampi linguine, grilled chicken and crab, mango and avocado salad.

We ventured out to a local racetrack where the daddies and kids raced go karts around a small track. A stop at Dippin' Dots cooled everyone down afterwards.


It was an awesome vacation with my fun, fabulous family! I love them sooooooo much!