Highlights from today: (click here for pictures)
Oh, it was a very restful night. We still woke up before the alarm clock went up but just a few minutes as compared to yesterday’s waking up a few hours before the alarm clock. We were ready for breakfast and out the door pretty quickly (though, pretty quickly for a family of 6 is not really that quickly). The kids were panicked when we climbed in the car-everyone started screaming about breakfast. We thought they understood when we explained that breakfast was in the next building. But we knew they didn’t understand when we parked at the next building and Reagan said “so this is our next hotel? that wasn’t far.”
We had about a 2 hour drive to Assateague Island and they watched movies on the way. Yes, Robby broke down and bought a portable movie player. It was probably worth every penny that he spent and then some to get a few minutes of quiet time. But Graham could care less about the movies-I just don’t know what to do about that. And no, not watching movies is not a good thing-it is a very bad thing!
The weather has been very cloudy today and sprinkled off and on but it has never really been rainy when we were outside-just damp. We made it to the seashore without stopping and headed straight to the bathroom. I took Reagan and Anderson and I have known that this would eventually happen and it happened today: someone got locked in a bathroom. It was just the stall but Reagan had locked the door and couldn’t get it open. My next option was me to crawl under and open it or to send Anderson-I sent Anderson. He couldn’t open it either so I just had them both crawl out and we left. I probably should have gotten it opened, but I just didn’t want to crawl around on the bathroom floor! Reagan never seemed concerned and almost seemed excited about getting to crawl under the stall. Now we have a new rule: you can not lock bathroom doors!
The visitor center at Assateague Island was pretty new and nice. Robby picked up a crab from the tank and Reagan so wanted too but decided she couldn’t. When Robby was trying to pick his up (he was a little skittish about the whole thing), Anderson and Graham were behind him. They were quite terrified for Robby-saying “put him back with his friends Daddy“and “it bite you Daddy.” Robby had just grabbed the crab and saw his legs move which made Robby jump back a little and squeal like a girl (made that part up). When Robby jumped back, he bumped into Anderson who must have thought the crab was coming for him because he jumped back as far as he could.
We then crossed the bridge onto the island. Right after the toll, we saw a horse standing still on the road. The kids kept asking if it was real and indeed it was-even though it didn’t move and it was still right there when we were on our way back.
Within a mile, we saw another group of horses. We let the big kids get out and take a few pictures (while being very careful not to get bitten or crushed in a stampede). Graham loved the horses. He told them all “bye bye neigh neigh” and “see you later neigh neigh.” We found a semi covered picnic table near the beach parking lot and set out to eat our lunch. We must have been hungry because we all devoured our sandwiches, chips and desserts. After lunch, we decided to go for a walk on the beach.
We have all of our luggage in the car so we could have easily let the kids put on bathing suits but since it was misting a little and really not that warm and since we weren’t planning on getting more than our toes in the water, we decided we didn’t need the bathing suits. We walked to the end of the pier and then took of socks and shoes and rolled up everyone’s pants legs. I thought I was doing good by rolling up their pants legs but even when you roll up Graham’s pants legs to his knee, it is just still a few inches off of the ground. We walked to the water and Campbell immediately started talking when she heard and saw the water. On the way, Reagan picked up every shell that she could find-they were mostly pieces but they were all made of pretty colors.
Everyone enjoyed running from the water and letting their feet get wet. Reagan wanted to hold someone’s hand and then somebody always had to hold on the Graham-he would get so excited running from the water that he couldn’t even stand up. Needless to say, we got a bit wet. Robby and Reagan were the first ones to get unexpectedly splashed. Graham and Mom were next. Anderson stayed pretty dry but still managed to get wet. He shouted to Mom “the ocean is so cool." When the waves would come near, Anderson would turn and run and run-at least 30 extra feet every time!
We wanted to get a picture of Campbell in the ocean (first time) so we had to make everyone else stand way back so no one would be tempted by the water. I held her down low and of course we were immediately splashed. After taking a few pictures, I stood up and she started screaming-she wasn’t finished getting her feet wet. We let the kids play some more and finally moved them away from the water. We tried to take a few beach pictures, but the lens was foggy from the weather so we will have to try again.
We walked back and tried to get the sand off and assess the wetness of the pants-Soaked! Rolling up the pants only creates a pocket to hold the water in. When we got in the car, we just took everyone’s pants off and drove on to the Cape May-Lewes ferry. Reagan asked a zillion times about her pants and if they were dry and if she could put them on at the ferry. The drive to the ferry was about an hour and we at one time thought the pants would be dry by the time we found it since the gps was taking us down a few roads where we saw no one else.
We made it to the ferry early, parked and went in. They had some video games there that the kids played with while I looked in the gift shop and Robby looked at brochures. Pretty soon it was time to get on the ferry. The ride was a little over an hour and it went by pretty quick-we walked around the boat, everyone went to the bathroom twice (where Reagan and then Anderson both told me that couldn’t use the potty because it was rocking), brought up our picnic supplies and had another picnic and sat outside a bit. The bay was pretty choppy today because of the weather so the boat had a pretty good rock to it. The kids didn’t seem to notice except to notice that they wanted to stand up and try to walk. We were about to buy sandwiched in the cafe but then opted to just go and get out own and again our picnic supplies came in handy. Before long, we were down in our car waiting to drive off the boat. Anderson and Graham must have thought the boat was pretty cool because they were very interested in all of the boat things.
When we left the ferry, we headed to the Cape May Lighthouse. When we drove up, Anderson exclaimed “the Eiffel Tower”-well, not really. But we did have fun running in the grass playing chase for a few minutes before heading to Atlantic City. Campbell snoozed in the car as we played. As we left, we noticed that we had closed up the Cape May Point State Park; they already had to gates closed.
In about an hour, we started having the kids look for Lucy the Elephant in Margate City, New Jersey. They asked if it would be big and if it would be real but they were very surprised when they saw how big Lucy really is. They were a little disappointed that we couldn’t go in it but we were pretty excited that we were able to get a great parking spot to see it since it was closed. Next we drove down the Atlantic City strip-I couldn’t get over all of the huge houses. The kids briefly noticed the lights but soon went back to whatever they were doing: Reagan playing princesses, Anderson swinging his taggie, Campbell sleeping and Graham crying (once he gets tired all he does in the car is whine)
Graham was probably the most excited to see the hotel. Even though it wasn’t too late, he was ready to go the bed when we finally had everything unpacked and pajamas on. Reagan and Anderson fell into our usual routine of movie and breathing treatment for Anderson. Meanwhile Campbell played with our shoes. I had given our a handful of toys, but she just turned around and grabbed our shoes.
I asked everyone what there favorite thing was from today. Anderson said that his favorite thing was chasing in the grass. Reagan said hers was seeing the big hotels. Graham was already in bed when I asked but his favorite was definitely the horses and Campbell did love the Atlantic Ocean. It was a good day and we will be ready for our first long driving day tomorrow.
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