Shore Was a Fun Vacation

I actually got back Saturday afternoon but have been trying to catch up with lots of laundry and cleaning that needs doing (blech, not my favorite). Usually I try to keep a journal on our vacations so I can remember what we did when but this time there was just no time to sit down and write anything down! We had so much fun though. We left very early Sunday morning and drove down to the Jersey shore to be with my family for the whole week. Actually Ricky left Sunday night and only came back Friday morning but I was there with the kids the whole time. Right after we got there on Sunday Ricky and I rode to the very end of the boardwalk with my parents and kids and got very fresh donuts and rode back. It was a 7.3 mile trip from where we were staying to the end of the boardwalk and back, the donut break in the middle was very nice and I always love riding my bike, especially on the flat New Jersey roads. In the afternoon we went out to the beach. The weather the whole week was just gorgeous and I don't think we could have asked for anything more. I went swimming almost every day and we definitely spent a lot of time sitting in the sand. Unfortunately Chase takes after his Daddy and does not care for the beach. This was the first and only time he "enjoyed" playing in the sand, even here he didn't want to put his hands down in it. It was quite frustrating but I tried hard not to let it bug me :P

Joanna loved it though and even though she didn't want to go in the water, she thought the sand was very tasty ;)

The beach was pretty empty even though the weather was perfect. That's the nice thing about going in the middle of September when all the kids are back at school.

Monday was more of the same, laying on the beach, boogie boarding, biking. We went to the boardwalk in the evening after dinner and walked around for a little (or maybe that was Tuesday night?). By Tuesday, I felt bad for Chase and convinced everyone to go to the park on 34th street in the morning. When I was little it was an all wooden park with mulch on the ground and we always had a blast playing tag or hide-and-seek at the there. Well they totally re-did it and it's pretty awesome. The kids had so much fun playing around. Chase just kept going down the slides over and over.

I had told Joanna to go sit on these little things and I'd take her picture and she posed like this for me!

So cute!

Wednesday morning was kinda rainy and dreary so we all decided to go to the Atlantic City Aquarium. That was a fun trip and there was a lot to see (but not too much).

They had some hands-on parts and I got to pet a couple sharks and sea urchins. The one who seemed to enjoy the aquarium the most was Aiden. I was very impressed that he touched everything and wanted to know all the fishes names, etc. Maybe he'll study marine biology in college like his daddy.

Thursday the ladies and Asher and Joanna went on a little shopping trip to Stone Harbor. We only went to 3 stores but spent almost all day there and had a lot of fun.

Friday, Ricky came over in the morning and we all decided to go to the Cape May Zoo, since it was kinda chilly and it was free to get in the zoo! I think this was actually my favorite part. I just love going to the zoo, it would have been even better if there was an elephant, but it was still fun.
When we got there Joanna was sleeping and actually stayed asleep in the Ergo for about 1/2 an hour while we were walking around.

She never sleeps through stuff like this so she must have been really tired. This was a pretty busy vacation.

Naomi always has to make a funny face when she sees the camera, silly girl :)

this lion was making a lot of noise this day but as soon as we ran to see him he stopped, however we kept hearing him throughout the park as we were walking around all day.

Christy and Christian dropped a bag of banana chips at one point and this bear and monkey came running over to see what was going on.

This bear actually stood up right behind Ricky and made him kinda nervous, it was pretty funny.

Looking at the giraffes

here's Joanna enjoying her lunch. What pretty blue eyes!

Friday evening my parents left to go home and Saturday morning we all cleaned up and left the house by 9:00am and went to breakfast at Uncle Bill's pancake house. It was nice to spend that time together before we all went our separate ways. Here's a picture of all the grand kids. There were 8 kids 8 and under so it was pretty busy as you can imagine.

Here's my poor little teething baby girl. she had her finger in her mouth like this all week and didn't sleep very well at all. 3 of her molars broke through and she's still working on one right now, poor thing.

Baby Kira did really well the whole week too. I actually was able to rock her to sleep two times!

If your wondering if that made me want to have another one the answer to that is... hmm, maybe a little ;)

Anyway, it was so much fun and I am going through withdrawal from not being able to see my family everyday now. It was perfect weather and wonderful company, there was some drama with fleas in the apartment but I guess we're not talking about that.