Cape May Vaca(tion)

Most of the time, we come home from a vacation saying, "Yeah, it was great but we're glad to be home in our own beds."

Not this one. I could've slept in the bed at that beach house for the duration of my life. Family, beach, great food, lots of dates (and an overnight!) with the husband, exploring, a lantern release for our loves, morning jogs with Aunt Mansa, geocaching, seeing my kids giddy with excitement each day...

We planned this trip for a number of reasons. Elliot's grandma from NY would be able to meet Claire for the first time and see Benjamin again (since she last saw him at 4 months old!), Elliot's uncle and aunt who live in Maine would come down to meet the kids as well, and the rest of the family would be able to make it for a portion of time. E's grandma who lives in Maryland, E's parents and his sister along with her boyfriend would all be able to make the 3-hour drive. And let's not forget beach house vacation for all!

We took the 1.5 hour flight from Chicago to New York and drove three hours to Cape May. The kids were perfect and it was all good as long as I kept handing over the snacks (aka the only foods Benjamin consistently eats). On the way home, Claire was graded a marginal C-, but Benjamin rocked it. The sweet age of flight is about 2.5, so little sister has a ways to go; just in time for us to shell out the cash for four seats. (We're squeezing in two more flights before that happens, thankfully.)

We had a date night out of town as well, but I'll save that for my next post. Without further adieu... let the photo bombardment begin!

It was a two-two seater, so B sat next to a stranger for the first time! 

We explored Wildwood one afternoon. Beach naps. Sand play.

Blanket forts with Gramie & Great Gramie, ocean play, Gramie rainbow ball love and some baby snuggles on the beach.

Aunt Mansa and Ben are besties.

Jumping to Grandpa from the ottoman never got old. Jumping into sand pits. Aunt Mansa reading up on marathon training (her first Savannah this November! Gramie and granddaughter.

Grandma Wilson with her son, grandson + me, great granddaughter and great grandson. Uncle Sam, Aunt Fran and her sister Mary + pool time!

Great Gramie play. First flowers gifted from Grandpa who bought them from a corner flower stand.

We visited Sunset Beach, the lighthouse and a WWII lookout (that was closed for the day). We collected these pebbles from the beach as part of a geocache.

Some precious moments between Ben and Grandpa. Grandpa turned 63, so Benjamin and Claire helped decorate a cake for him. Then Benajmin proceeded to scold Grandpa on his choice of  books, deeming the book on Japanese culture the "mean" book. He expressed great displeasure that Grandpa would read such a book (and later made me read SIX pages of it to him).

During one of Claire's naps, we took B on a trolley ride around the town. This was part of Claire's silly behavior on our plane ride back.

Great Gramie signed the guest book at our cottage. 

The week was divine and one we're not likely to stop daydreaming about for quite awhile.