Vacationing down the shore in July...Part 1

We spent a lovely week down the shore (that's Jersey talk for "we went to the beach") for vacation from the daily grind. This July the weather has been cooler than normal and we really had a beautiful week to be down the shore and spent the majority of the time on the beach or at the bay beach. Ron did go out fishing and crabbing with Dad two days as well. Here are some photos from the trip...

The beach is her domain, the sand, and the sea...

Several hours were spent with sand toys digging holes, building drizzle sand castles and heck, just using a watering can and "watering" the sand and filling the buckets over and over and over...
I mean, really, over and over and over...


Of course there was also swimming! Maddie was tentative about jumping the waves on the "big girl beach" at one point she was hiding behind Ron as the waves came in. But she got over that pretty quick and kept wanting to go deeper in the water!

There was also a good amount of playing on the playset at the house as well. This made for just a wonderfully relaxing time. Walk to the beach early in the morning (we're early risers and were on the beach most days before 9am), come home for lunch and nap, then either go back to the beach or play on the playset while Mommy tries to read her book. One block away is a produce stand where we got fresh sweet corn...and you know, everything was within walking distance which was a nice change from home. The only thing I wish we had brought with us is our bikes. We'll have them for September though!

The bathing beach was well loved. She liked it because I'd let her go in deeper by herself (the entire thing is shallow) and of course she had on a life vest...and sometimes a wet suit as well - I swear the girl can't hold her body heat!

We were there with Mom Mom and Pop Pop which was fun, even though Mom Mom had to go to work several of the days. We still had fun waking her up in the morning *grin* and having dinner with her at night. We got to see Pop Pop all day (well, that is until he and Ron went out on the boat a couple of the days).

It's hard to say, but I think it's a pretty safe assumption that Maddie had fun while we were there. She had a different bathing suit for each day (Thanks for the hand-me-downs Molly!) and was uber-excited each morning when I told her to get dressed in a bathing suit each day.

More photos and more about vacation later...