We’re getting back into the swing of school schedules and somewhat cooler weather, but just 3 weeks ago, I was hanging out here with my daughters and my mom, enjoying the sandy beach of Wildwood, NJ. We ended up making our annual girls trip the last week of August this year, right before Ellie started school (1st grade, what??), and it was still pretty busy, but the weather was nice, and the storms held off, so we had a great trip. Ellie, as always, was super excited, and spent much of her time down at the water, jumping waves with Gami. Andie, on the other hand, is normally our super adventurous one, but she was pretty apprehensive about the ocean waves, so she did more playing in the sand than wandering out into the water. The only way we could get her to go out to the water initially was if one of us was carrying her, as you’ll see. I’ll be curious to see how much that changes next year. The really nice thing though, was that we don’t have to worry about her falling on her face all the time anymore. Last year, she had just started walking shortly before our beach trip, so I felt like we were constantly making sure she didn’t fall over and hurt herself. Amazing how much changes in a year! Now she’s running and jumping and trying to climb all over the playground, doing all the things the big kids can do.
Anyway, here’s a little recap of our trip, with lots of fun playing in the sand and water, and making fun memories with the girls. :)
Of course, we couldn’t spend 24 hours a day down at the beach, so we found some other fun things to do, like blow bubbles on the motel balcony, do a surrey bike ride, and wander around the Wildwood Boardwalk. We had some pretty windy days, but that didn’t stop the fun :) And just in case you couldn’t tell, half of these pics were taken with my phone, since I didn’t feel like lugging my big camera around everywhere. So if you notice a difference in quality, that’s why. I normally don’t share phone pics on the blog, but for a personal post like this, I make an exception, because the memories are just too cute not to share, and this sort of acts like an online journal of sorts for vacations and family events where I took lots of pictures and thought you all might enjoy seeing a glimpse into our life.
My cutie pies :) It’s also cool how much stuff has been built around the area, like walkways along the beach and playground structures like a big wooden boat for the kids to play around in, these girls loved it!
There was also plenty of reading and snuggle time…and ice cream sundaes after dinner and baths on our last night there.
And just like we’ve done for the last couple of years, on our way home from the beach, we hit up the Cape May Zoo, which was a lot more fun than Ellie made it look in this picture! It’s like I already have a teenager who is tired of her mom taking pictures, ha! I always enjoy seeing all the animals, even though the girls are usually tired and ready to be home by that point. But it was still fun, especially now that Andie actually understands that we’re looking at animals instead of pointing at random things where she has no idea what she’s looking at. We packed a little picnic lunch to eat at the zoo, complete with Gami’s famous “beach muffins”, as we refer to them. :) And when the girls pass out in the car on the drive home, you know it was a successful trip :)
Beach Trip 2019 is in the books! See ya next year, Wildwood!