Saturday, July 18, 2015

Beach Life

A couple of weeks ago, Sean and I finally took a vacation. 

Between me being in my probationary period at work (where I wasn't able to take vacation days) and Sean working 6 days a week for the last 9 months, not to mention a growing baby to contend with, it felt amazing to finally take a little break. 


And break we did. 

We started with a visit to our lost love, New York. We spent 14 hours there, 12ish of which were spent in our hotel room (with some of our favourite New York friends very accomodatingly coming over to hang with us there) but we still managed to have the best time.








   We did very New York things like eat burgers from, allegedly, the best burger place in the city, and took a walk through Central Park (...after getting sick of sitting in traffic in a taxi). In the morning I took Lola down to Rockefeller Plaza so that we could have coffee (me), eat oatmeal (her), and watch the Today Show as we do every morning.




And then just as quickly as we arrived, we were off again. This time, headed down the shore to Long Beach Island, NJ.

My most favourite place ever.



We first started going to LBI back in...maybe 1992? Ages and ages ago, in other words. A few years back it dawned on me that Uncle John and Aunt Corinne were around our age in those early years. It blew my mind. I suddenly realized we aren't the children any more, we're the adults.

Luckily, our adulthood (i.e. finding a rental, planning the week, organizing meals, cleaning, etc. etc. etc.) was put off for yet another year as the ever-hospitable Connelly clan took us all in once again. I can't tell you how nice it is and how great they are as hosts, we are truly blessed.

The best part of it of course was that Lola got to spend time with her family. She's always been a bit of a mamma's girl but now that she's 9 months old, oh boy the separation anxiety is at its height. This makes her a little unsure about hanging out with others, which kills me because I so want her to be a social girl. Either way, she managed to chill out a few times and enjoy the company of a crowd of her fans. The family is great with her, everyone takes such joy in the little things that she does. And watching everyone try to help her crawl - hilarious and heartwarming. You've never seen so many grown people down on all fours. She never did manage to figure out the forward motion so essential to crawling but she did pick up a few other things during our vacation anyway. Mostly an affinity for Big Brother, which somehow went from being just "something on" during a rainy day to a full on obsession for some who shall remain anonymous (cough cough Sean cough). 




After nights drinking beers on the deck and late night runs to Meltdown (formerly referred to as Skipper Dipper to my husband's confusion), the house was often quiet in the mornings and Lola and I found ourselves mostly on our own for a short period of time. Not ever having been a morning person before Lola, I wasn't exactly sure what to do with this. And then I remembered one summer at the shore when Nicole, just a little thing at the time, had told me about seeing dolphins jumping out of the water during an early morning walk on the beach. For years I had thought about that, wishing I had enough will power to wake up early enough to go check this out for myself. But it never happened. The only reason I ever woke up early down the shore was to go eat breakfast at Uncle Wills Pancake House. And unless chocolate chip pancakes were part of the deal, an early wake-up was just not going to happen. 

But here I was, awake early! With a little monkey who naps by 9:30am and is unlikely to cooperate with a 30min + wait followed by a crowded restaurant, Uncle Wills was not in our sights. But a walk to the beach? That we could do. And do we did. 


(Lola's first selfie!)

No, we didn't end up seeing any dolphins but it was great nonetheless. Just me, my girl, and the ocean 

It was really such a great few days, overall. We celebrated the 4th of July by blasting Springsteen and playing a family game of Flip Cup, we rode bikes past Fantasy Island, we wedding planned and shopped, we swam in the big Jersey waves, drank summery beers, and laid out on the beach for as long as possible. I could go on and on. 


I mean really, is there anything better than a good ol' fashioned famjam at the Jersey shore?


#LBIfamjam2015 you were a slice! 


Thank you so much Connelly's!!

1 comment:

  1. Such a fun week! Love the pictures!!! xoxo, Nicole

    ReplyDelete