Beach Time!

Well, our two beach days of the summer are done.  And what a 'venture it has been.

Last Monday Amma got here nice and early at a little before 7.  By shortly after 7 Boo, Amma and I were on the road and heading down to Delaware.  I was sad that Gak couldn't join us, but excited to have a day away from the office and with my son (and mom) at the beach.

The drive down was fairly uneventful.  There was a bit of traffic, as always on the Blue Route right around the Schuylkill and where they're doing some construction, but nothing too horrible.  We actually made pretty good time.  The only iffy part was a few sprinkles of rain on the way down and some lingering clouds.

Once down there we stopped at McDonalds to try their new smoothies (very yummy!) and change for the beach.  The weather was gorgeous.  The sun was shining, there were a few clouds providing a little spotty shade.  The game plan was to hit the beach for a bit, get some lunch, do a little shopping and head to Jay's by mid-afternoon to meet up with people.

We get to the beach and find a great little spot.  We were able to park on the Avenue about a block and a half up!  We even find another little guy who's not quite 2.5 years old and the boys have fun playing with their assorted sand toys for an hour or so.

The water was beautiful and nice and cool.  The waves were a little rough, but not too bad at the edges.  Unfortunately, even though Boo was amazed that the water was "rolling!" he didn't want anything to do with it this year.  We went down to the edge several times and each time I set him down, he'd turn around and walk straight to our blanket without even looking back.  So, we spent most of our time playing in the sand (even though Momma really, really wanted to play in the water.)

After the beach we get our feet cleaned up and our shoes and shorts and shirts back on and go for some lunch.  Of course, we go to Grotto Pizza.  (And of course I was evil big sister and sent Jon a picture of our pizza as soon as it got to the table...)  But, my non-pizza eating son had a grilled cheese and French fries.  (I never realized how good their fries are!  I think they salt the oil, not the fries.  Boy are they yummy.)

The cutest thing was after lunch.  Boo didn't want back into the stroller, but wanted to walk.  (He'd walked from the beach to Grotto while we pushed the bags in the stroller.)  He also insisted on carrying his bag of sand toys and was quite content to wander down the sidewalk all on his own.  I think he was anxious to get back on the beach, but unfortunately, we weren't heading there.  We made a quick stop at Dolly's for some mint sticks (I got Gak some chocolate-mint ones that are yummy!).  I also stuck my head in at Endeavor Trading Company, the store that has all those wonderful batik shirts and dresses that I love, but didn't buy anything.

Our next stop was the outlet malls.  We only stopped at a couple of places because I didn't want to take a lot of time and I didn't have a big budget to spend anyhow.  I got two things at Gap (which I returned yesterday) but even though I really liked the skirt, I knew I wouldn't get much use out of it and still spent too much on it.  At the VF outlet I did manage to get 1 pair of pants and 3 shirts.  I really love the one shirt, and the other two will be nice when it cools off a bit.  And yes, the pants are 2 sizes smaller than this time last year.

Then it was off to Jay's.  Boo got to meet the original Kelly, Jay's really big dog.  They did a very good job of just staying out of each other's way.  He also got to meet Molly, Robin and Paul's little dog.  Of course he got to meet Robin and Paul and see Jay again.  Overall we had a nice visit and then headed out for dinner at Bob Evan's.  We finally left down there at around 8 and had a boy who fell asleep at about 9 on the way home.  (He'd had a short nap on the way down and about a 20 minute snooze on the way to and once we got to Bob Evan's.)  Of course, this means we got home around 11, and the next morning was a bear.  But it was sooo worth it.

Yesterday we followed a very similar plan.  The weather was nice, but a good bit more humid.  Boo still wanted nothing to do with the water.  That's OK though, we had lots of fun in the sand and I kept going back to the surf to get buckets of water and a chance to cool off.

Lunch was at Grotto again and then to the outlets.  I returned my purchases from Gap from last week and Boo got a new shirt at A Children's Place that was nicely on sale.  This time there was all kinds of family at Jay's house.  Robin and Paul are up from Georgia, so of course it meant we had to get the family together.  Her two brothers live in Maryland still, so Dave and Kathy and Jimmy, Penny and "little" Jimmy were all there.  Unfortunately Bill (Robin and Paul's son) wasn't going to come up until today and Linda and Frank couldn't come up from Tennessee.  "Little" Jimmy is 14 and not so little.  He's almost 6' tall and a very nice guy.  He and Boo had a lot of fun playing together once they warmed up to each other.

It was a great day and we got out of there an hour earlier.  This time Boo fell asleep in the car within about 5 to 10 minutes.

So, yeah, we had two wonderful beach adventure days.

Go check the rest of the pictures (and some video) out on Flickr.

Peace to all and may your 'ventures be good ones.