Goodbye, Garden

Our garden has been good to us this summer. Zucchini (striped! looked like a zebra!), cucumbers, lettuce, green peppers (even though we thought they were supposed to be red), and tomatoes. And FINALLY, look what is (kinda-sorta) ready:

 Oliver has been dying to pull these out of the dirt since we planted the wee-teeny-tiny seeds months ago.
I was told to wait until you saw some orange peeping out of the soil.

 Ah, but sometimes, that does not guarantee large carrots:

 This is our haul for now. I will leave the rest in the ground for awhile longer.
We ate some raw, and used the rest for soup. Mmmm, soup. I had a cold this week, but did everything I could to get over it quickly. Large doses of Vitamin C, soup, and sleep, sleep, sleep. Jim was instrumental in achieving that ;)

 Jon, Dan, Jim, Jay, and Jamie (on the laps). We had planned for a beach day with the first few... and the last one just HAPPENED to be in town from San Francisco this weekend. Nice Del-Val HS reunion. Still goofballs.

South Jersey-ness

 Ahh, he's got the life!
When I think back to all of the camping I did as a kid, I have many memories of falling asleep in our pop-up camper, trying very hard not to touch the permeable canvas when it was raining... or sleeping on the bottom bunk in our trailer while my brother, or a friend, slept up top (I was too afraid that I'd fall out if I was up there).
But now? Now my parents have the ultimate camping machine. And we can do things like close the door in the back bedroom so that little people can take naps. Sprawled out on beds. In air conditioning. ;)

And then we have energy for this:

A visit to the Cape May Zoo. It is a great place! It was pretty hot, and lots of the animals were lazily lying around... but the boys didn't mind. The last time we were there was when Trenton was about a year and a half.
The turtles were cool.

 This one below appeared stuck in the rocks.

 A unique carousel had zoo animals for the kids to ride on. Below, Trenton fakes a finger bite incident.

 Mom and Dad invited us to join them at Sunset Beach that evening... they have been many times before. It is truly an awesome experience to be right at the tip of New Jersey and watch as the sun goes down, behind the clouds, and into the ocean. Dad brought his fishing equipment and Trenton actually caught a good-sized fish before the night was over. Bear with me here-- lots of pictures, but all good enough to blog ;)

 In the distance is a sunken WWII ship, I believe. Each evening the locals honor one veteran and lower the flag in their memory.

 Oliver serenaded us with his pop music.

 Fishin' with Pop Pop.

Next day we were up bright and early and headed off to Wildwood. The beach there is sooo friggin' wide... we really had to walk to get to the shore.

 When I was a kid, we spent summers in North Wildwood. Boogie boarding, playing paddle ball, enjoying fudgie-wudgies from the ice cream man... It is nice to make some of the same memories with my parents and my own sons ;)

 LUNCH! Uncle Bill's Pancake House-- classic. If you can believe it, Trenton ate all three of those strawberry pancakes. I was reminded that this is most definitely my favorite pancake house, hands-down.

 Spent lots of time at the pool at the campground. They've put up these air-structures that include bounce houses and water slides. The boys LOVED those.

Wet and Wild from Sheryl K. on Vimeo.

The long walk home ;)

 S'mores for dessert.

 My Aunt Carol joined us for a visit. It was nice to chat with her.
See that grate leaning on the fire pit above? We actually watched as a frog chased a bug nearby, then continued hopping up the grate, and directly INTO the fire. Crazy, right? It gets better-- Aunt Carol jumped right up and grabbed around in the coals to save the frog! Both she & the frog were OK, incredibly.

 And then on Friday we left Cape May to visit with THIS little man:

 Isaac, Andrea, and Adam were in town for a mini-vacation! And Isaac is going to be a big brother around Valentine's Day!  He was such a good boy-- played in the sand and with his daddy most of the time.

And THAT was our trip "down the shore".
We've significantly added to the amount of sand in the trunk of our truck.
I LOVE SUMMER!

Staycation 2012

The Bluesteens came for a five day visit this week! We packed in as much as we could.

A visit to Island Beach State Park, where we completely buried each kid ;)

  

 

Although the weather was mostly overcast, the water was a nice 70 degrees.

Bayside, the kids participated in a netting activity where they were able to capture some local sea life.

On Sunday night, we took the kids to Point Pleasant... above you can see Shairna and Justin in the front left of this new ride, the Pendolo. Later, half of the crew went to the Blueclaws game, while the rest of us watched a "Nutts for Mutts" show on the beach.

We kept busy playing at home, too. Below, Marcus (9) and Jared (10 1/2) built their own box houses using T's Make-a-do set. 

We also went roller skating. The older boys got the hang of it pretty well... T is still hanging onto walls, but getting better!

There was lots of playing outside on our street. Above, the kids eat their dessert (banana cupcakes) outside on the sidewalk (one less time to clean up the table in the house!)  

And a final excursion to our local park. Just enough outside time to tire the kids out, so that they'd fall asleep each night... but they were so excited to play with each other, that they were awake at the crack of dawn each morning!

Shairna begins nursing school at JMU in a few weeks. It will be an interesting year for their family! Here's hoping that this mini-vacation was a relaxing break. We had lots of fun having you guys here in NJ!