arboretum with dee dee

After the beach, Liora and mommy went to Dee Dee's house in Pennsylvania for a night. We visited Tyler Arboretum, where they had a cool "fairies in the forest" exhibit and a tree house exhibit. It was a hot day, but we powered through for a little bit. It was nice to end our beach trip with a little side visit!

An elf tea party set up in the woods.

Checking out the caterpillars in the butterfly exhibit.

boardwalk visit - family centered this time

This is the final round of beach photos! On our next to last day at the beach, we made a trip to Ocean City, Maryland, which is a little more family friendly than Atlantic City.

We walked on the boardwalk, enjoyed some good pizza and cheesesteaks, and went to an amusement park. The kids had a ball.

In sync arcading.

Loving her pizza.

Yum!

Paul and Sammy enjoying east coast fair.

We left the next day. Liora and I headed to DeeDee's house for an extra day of vacation, and Gabi and family headed up to New Hampshire. It was so nice to have the whole family together for a beach vacation!

beautiful beach

We're still not through all of the beach photos! This set come from a particularly beautiful afternoon trip to the beach, when the tide was way out and the shore birds were super excited about available food. We had been going to the beach in the morning, so we had missed these views! And the fun of running all around the beach.

I love this photo--Leo and Paul racing to us, caught mid-motion!

Cone heads in love!

Awwww.

Cute pics

Sometimes we just do a post of cute photos, with no theme but the cuteness. We'll take a break from the beach and get back to that in the next post.

Did you know that Liora can read? Novels even!

She loves popsicles, and asks for them at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Look at that pose! Standing in her sleepsack and still modeling.

Beach #4 - Rainy Day

We had great weather the entire week we were in Brigantine--except for one day. That day, we went out to breakfast, visited the ocean "wall" in town, and headed to the New Jersey aquarium in Atlantic City.

Every day, Liora likes to pick out a barrette for her outfit. This day, she picked out a hello kitty barrette for Sammy, who gladly put it on. He looks pretty pleased with himself.

Liora loves her Uncle Paul!

She is a doll!

After breakfast, we went to the seawall to see the ocean. It came very close! So close it turned Leo into a monster, which is what he said this face was (or maybe the devil, I don't really remember).

I love this photo! The drama! The hair up the nose! The spit dribbling off the chin.

Kids love watching fish.

This was a tank you could put your hands in (or at least Liora thought that was what it was for; see the blurry hand shaking).

Sammy got comfy in Liora's stroller.

Sharing her applesauce experience with a horseshoe crab.

Beach #3 - Loving the Ocean

Here is some more coverage of Liora's love of the beach. Last year, we took a video of Liora walking right into the water, and so this year I wanted to replicate it.

Here she looks like she is unhappy, but she was seriously rolling around in the sand trying to get as covered in it as she could. This was fun to clean up.

If you look closely, you can see "Brigantine" in the sand in front of DeeDee and Liora. It appeared there magically.

Gabi in her super cool sun hat.

This series of photos cracked us up. Sammy was sitting in the rocker. Liora want to be there too. So she pushed her way on there.

Sammy looks really happy about that, doesn't he?

Beach #2 - Paul & Leo Join Us

Before I get to more beach, newsflash! Liora has now peed on the potty not once, not twice, but three times in the past day. It is as if something clicked in her brain. She is very excited! So are mommy and daddy.

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On Monday of Beach Week, Uncle Paul and Leo joined us. On Tuesday, we followed what became our pattern of heading to the beach in the morning (right after breakfast; we perfected getting out of the house by 8 every day with kids sunscreened and everything), then showering, having lunch, taking a nap, then doing some sort of afternoon activity.

Following last year's braveness at the beach, Liora was much the same this year. She loved the sand, the water, the shells. This year we had a little bit more sand play, and less sand eating. She very resolutely strode into the ocean, and showed no fear of it. 

Liora and Sam enjoyed making sand castles, as well as personal pools of water to sit in near the water's edge.

Paul and Leo hard at work.

Gabi demonstrating the "drippy castle" technique refined by the Yaunches family.

In the afternoon, someone had the bright idea to go to Atlantic City to play mini-golf (I really don't remember who it was, I could be to blame, but we'll really never know). With toddlers in tow. To Atlantic City. Oh, and did I mention that we left the house really late in the day with no strollers, and no plan for dinner? And that we had to walk to the boardwalk from what seemed like blocks away ? And that it was Atlantic City (not known as a family friendly destination...)?

We DID manage to enjoy the mini-golfing. Liora captured the goal of the game right away: look cute carrying around a golf club and put the ball in the hole. At some point, we realized that no real competitive game of mini-golf was going to be happening that evening, and we just sort of walked through the holes with the kids having fun rolling the balls around.