For as long as I can remember, my family, at least the girls in the family, have been making an annual beach trip. When I was little, it used to be my mom’s whole side of the family, sometimes with grandparents tagging along too for fun. We would get a few rooms at a motel close to the beach and all have a good time playing in the sand and water by day and hanging out at the motel playing games and running around in the evenings. As all of us kids started getting older and more involved in different activities, our schedules sort of went different ways and eventually our annual beach trip narrowed down to just my immediate family. And even after I got married, we still continued our tradition, only missing I think one year, the year Matt and I got married and went to Jamaica for our honeymoon. Because, let’s be real, I’d rather go to Jamaica than NJ any day, and our schedule was just crazy that year with the wedding being the same month we typically go to the beach. So naturally, when started having kids, my mom and I decided that we should definitely keep the tradition alive and include my kiddos in our beach fun. Since Matt’s not a big beach fan, we don’t really go to the beach much with him, so this girls trip with my mom is really their only big beach experience for the year. And I’ve been so blessed and grateful that my mom has set aside time and made the effort to make sure this girls trip happens every year because it has provided so many fun memories (and pictures) that I know we’ll love looking back on for years to come. Yes, going to the beach with babies and little kids is a lot of work (which is why we only do it once a year), but the memories are so worth it. Here’s a little picture recap of our trip this year. These first pictures are with my regular camera, but I it’s not super convenient to drag that around everywhere at the beach, so a lot of the later pictures are just with my phone. I typically don’t include phone pictures on the blog, but these were still great memories, so I’m including them for fun. Enjoy!
And the rest are from my phone…
For the past couple years, we’ve done this surrey bike ride one of our mornings at the beach, and ridden it the whole way up the boardwalk and back.
My mom brought along these fun little window stickers for the girls, which they absolutely loved. Little things like this that keep kiddos occupied in the room are a big win.
Ellie gets a little more confident each year in the water, and she’s come a long way from being pretty afraid of it. Little Andie, on the other hand, seems to have no fear!
One of our nights there, we introduced Ellie to fair rides on one of the piers of the boardwalk. She was ecstatic, thought it was the best thing ever!
I loved that there was a cool playground right by our motel, so we let the girls explore that and have fun running around with the other kids. Well, Andie wasn’t really running yet. she had just recently started walking, so the whole time we were pretty much just trying to keep her from falling on her face. Unsuccessfully, apparently, since she did end up busting her lip, as you can see in these pictures.
On our way home, we visited the Cape May Zoo, which is lots of fun. Of course, the girls were kind of tired and worn out, but they did in fact enjoy it ;)
It was a great trip, and I can’t wait for next year’s adventures!
