Down by the Bay...

Where the watermelon grows... back to my home... I dare not go...

Ok, I'll stop.  Does anyone else know that song though?  It was stuck in my head the whole weekend we were away and everyone looked at me like I was nuts when I would sing it :P

almost two weekends ago we had the opportunity to go to the shore with a group of friends of ours.  We had a really great time!  We went to a place close to the little town of Rock Hall, Maryland.  It was a really nice quiet, quaint little town.  And it didn't take long to get there at all, maybe 2 hours, and a nice drive through farm lands and back roads.

Since Chase can ride his bike without training wheels now I thought he should have a helmet.  He wore this the whole way down:

We got there a little after lunch time on Friday.  There were 8 adults and 10 kids (ages 6 and under) in this little house, with one bathroom and 4 bedrooms... we made it work though.  Joanna didn't mind being the only girl her age, she keeps up with the boys pretty well... and somehow convinced the men and some of the boys to let her paint their nails with her polish she brought :P

The kids had a blast.

It rained most of the day on Saturday so we just sat around and talked and played games.

We had some pretty delicious breakfasts while we were there.

Having some sausage:

Saturday evening we went out to eat at a famous seafood place down there.  They rolled out the paper on the tables and then just dumped crabs, etc. in front of us and said, "have at it".  It was really good food!

We made quite a mess!

Sunday it finally started to clear off and we were able to get outside some more.  I went for my long run first thing in the morning before anyone else got up.  I was "scheduled" to run 8 miles and was able to do the whole 8 without stopping, and at a faster pace then I ever went before on my long runs.  Still not that fast but I was really pleased with how it went, it was so flat down their it was awesome for running.  I think I should drive down to Maryland every weekend :P
After breakfast we packed up the kids and walked down to the bay, which was only about a block from the house we were staying in.  Caleb found an interesting fish:

we were pretty much the only people on this little beach:

Apparently it was a bad year for jelly fish there though. Chase, Joanna and I all got stung.

Isn't this swim diaper just the cutest?!

She enjoyed the beach but didn't really go in the water much.

Chase didn't really want to go in the water after he got stung (neither did I, so I can't blame him!)

We went back to the house and ate lunch and then went in to the town of Rock Hall to walk around a little.  There were a bunch of little shops in the town that we looked around in.  We went back, packed up and headed home after that.  The kids pretty much slept the whole way home, they were exhausted!

And happy to be home:

When we walked around the town of Rock Hall we saw a lot of pirate things, which the kids of course begged for.  I said no way, I'll make you pirate stuff.  So Monday morning I crocheted away furiously to make them eye patches and a bullion pouch for Joanna.  Chase drew a treasure map and I browned it in the oven for him.  They played pirates the rest of the day and it was pretty cute :)

Joanna, after I gave her her pouch:

She was pleased :P