2011 beach trip, in video.

I sat down to finally write about our beach vacation and started flipping through the 1300+ photos.  I quickly became overwhelmed by both the memories of such a fun trip as well as an artificial sense of pressure as to which ones to pick to post.  Silly, silly, I know.  So instead, I decided to try out a video scrapbook.  FYI, it's about 3 minutes long and there is music (Ingrid Michaelson's Sort Of).  Here is our vacation through my lens.

xoxo, Sandra

A bit of beach.

We are back from the beach.  Days ago, actually, and it was wonderful.  Of course it was also demanding.  But realizing that the boys will neither stay young long nor need me as much in a few years keeps things in perspective.  Deep breathing helps as well.  And chocolate.  Thank goodness I packed chocolate.

Truth be told, my boys did great.  Amazing, even--there were just challenges getting them to settle down each night to sleep as sharing the room with littlest one was a new frontier.  Will was like a hot potato, tossed back and forth by his brothers as to who would "get" to sleep with him.  It also wasn't ideal because, similar to last year, the vacation began with Team Parent down a man.  I drove up alone with the boys and Charlie came in at the end of the week.  But I really cannot complain about the trip up.  In fact, to describe the success of the outbound drive, I need only share with fellow parents that we drove 3.5 hours straight, no stopping--despite no one napping and one false start/turn around because I forgot something.  An entire suitcase, to be precise.  Of swimsuits!  When we were heading to the beach for goodness sake!!  How does one do that, exactly?

I took my new camera and took nearly 1,300 pictures--I blame the fast-fire mode as I averaged three frames for each shot when the kids were in motion on an amusement ride.  I still need to go through them and hope to post a beach recap this weekend.  That is my fair warning that it might contain a lot of pictures.  So if you are just here for the crafty, there are more project progress reports on the horizon for next week.  But this week--well, I've been busy trying to keep the closeness going.  It is semi-working.

Happy Friday!

Sandra

Beach recap, 2010.

I keep patting my pockets during the day, like something is missing.  And then I realize I'm not forgetting anything at all--there really is only one mouth to feed at a time during most of my day (not counting my own, of course). 

Little man and I are still adjusting to a new routine.  One without the big boys, now that they're in school.  Part of the struggle, I think, is we came straight off of our beach vacation where we hung out together non-stop.  For a week.  A week that was notable because everyone got along incredibly well.  And then we go straight to this...this mostly empty house.  It was not my most strategic of moves.  And I'm writing it down here to serve as a reminder for next year.  Or, good grief, in three years when our littlest one heads to kindergarten.  Excuse me while I faint.

But, ahhh, the beach.  It was, in a word, fantastic. 

                    

 

We rented a house a block and a half away from the beach, North End, in Ocean City, New Jersey.  Yes, the Jersey Shore.  But not that Jersey shore.  This town is dry which makes it a perfect family spot (you can BYOB but you avoid biker and college groups that tend to crowd many other shore rental areas).  We love the boardwalk and the amusement park.  And the gentle sloping beach that is perfect for kidlets.

The hurricane did preclude boogie boarding on most days.  But it also made for interesting waves (they came in diagonally!) and the older boys could not body surf enough.  This year, William did not take to the water much, which was okay because it was a bit rough.  But he loved playing in the sand with borrowed dinos and checking out the many craters dug by the rest of his family...

And he's definitely got the beach-lounging-thing down...

I don't think I can fully explain how much they enjoyed themselves.  And it's something I don't want to forget.  This should remind me:  we spent between 5 to 7 uninterrupted hours on the beach, five days straight.  And we would have gone back for more on that last day if the guards hadn't closed the beach due to the hurricane.  I think I need to put a huge sand pit in our backyard.

Evenings were filled with simple things, like taking a stroll that always ended with a healthy dose of ice cream.  Or heading to the amusement park on the boardwalk...

The big boys rediscovered some favorite rides from last year...

And it was littlest one's first go.  He is a daredevil so of course he loved it.  His giggles were infectious and once the older boys saw such unmatched glee, they insisted on spending their precious tickets only on rides that they could all ride.  Together. 

It was so sweet, I kid you not, that I got verklempt in the middle of a kiddie park.  And it made me forget the forty-two times over the summer that the older boys stuffed little man into a random piece of furniture to get rid of him.

 

So yes, the beach...it was awesome.  But again, it makes me miss biggest one and biggest little even more this week.    

 

Beach trip.

We went to the beach for a few days and had a great time.  And by a great time, I simply mean that in the end, the effort and pain of packing, sitting in traffic, trying to convince two older kids that they can hold it, unpacking, shush shushing so the baby can nap, hauling 5 beach bags, 3 kids, and a stroller 3 blocks to the beach, constantly finger-swiping mouthfuls of sand, promising to scotch-tape broken shells to avoid meltdowns, refereeing who got which bucket, shovel, toy, etc. even though there were plenty to share, having a side of grit with every bite because little sand covered hands could not keep out of the snacks--then repeating everything a la Groundhog Day until it was time to reverse the order and head home--was worth it. 

Because Will got his first beach trip.  

And Leo, who would not let his bare feet touch sand a year ago, is evidently over that quirk.

And Max spent hours lost in a sandcastle mission and his first try at boogieboarding.

And the older ones laughed and smiled, screamed and hooted like we've never seen on an assortment of amusement rides.  

Oh, and I'm pretty sure that eating french fries and ice cream every single night helped color my memory of the trip a bit, too.  Hope you are having a wonderful summer.