Samantha's first blog

Posted By pamelamyers on August 11, 2013

Another vacation in Sea Isle City, NJ has come and gone, so quickly. But once again, we had a wonderful time. Actually, this was probably my favorite vacation in a while. Sam had a blast and is just simply at an age when she is so fun to be with. It was the kind of vacation I have been wanting to have for a long time. Sam didn’t sleep in at all, of course, so it was sort of exhausting, but she stayed up late a few nights so we could go out and have ice cream, visit the boardwalk, and otherwise do vacation things. And she was great on the beach. She amused herself digging in the sand for hours at a time and thought everything was wonderful. She was so much more independent this year. It really drives home how big she is getting. But on to the photos!

This was our house this year, the one on the right. We were two houses back from the beach, but had a view of the ocean anyway, which was really nice.

One of the first places we went to eat was a small restaurant called Valerie’s Place. It was super kid friendly with a wall painted like a chalkboard and loads of toys. It was casual and right up Sam’s alley. We found this sign and I just had to take a picture. Every day when Sam leaves my mom’s house they say, “See ya later, Alligator, After a while, Crocodile.” Sam thinks it is hysterical. I took it as a sign of good things to come.

The first real day at the beach was Sunday (even though Mark took Sam down looking for seashells on Saturday while my mom and I unpacked). It felt so good to finally be on the beach! The weather seemed iffy since it wasn’t much above 80 degrees the whole week but surprisingly it was perfect. It seemed warm, there was a bit of cloud cover off and on to keep us from getting too hot, and it rained, but only sporadically and generally early in the morning. There have been years when it was so hot it was almost too hot for the beach, but not this year. Sam was so excited to finally hit the sand. I couldn’t believe how anxious she was to be there, and how much she remembered from last year.

After the beach, we all strolled the Promenade so we could get ice cream and the kids could  play some games. Krista and Adam always bring Maddox’s wagon so the kiddos can get pulled along. They were so thrilled to get to hang out for a whole week!

At Yum Yums with Grandmom.  Sam’s a bit excited, don’tcha think?

After ice cream, we stopped at a few of our favorite places like the turtle.

We always seem to take pictures here and it amazes me how big Sam gets from year to year. I hope we can keep taking a pic like this every year to commemorate her growth.

Another favorite photo spot is the boat. After the pictures Sam was pretending to be the captain and she kept asking Mark where he wanted to go.

Game time! Skee ball is my favorite so we always have to do that first. Sam hasn’t quite gotten the hang of rolling the ball yet. She sometimes does, but it never makes it all the way. She much prefers hurling the ball down the lane.

As you can see here.  Poor skee ball machines!

One of Sam’s favorite games was this one, where the object was to stomp on the spiders as they lit up. Mark and I were trying to help her so that she would get more tickets but she got so mad and kept yelling at us that she could do it. She is so fierce in her independence sometimes. I am proud of her because of it (most of the time)…

It was almost time to head back to the house but not before Sam rode some rides. She liked this little dragon.

But the ice cream truck was her favorite, as you can see!

She did manage to win (with a little help from us) lots of tickets so she came home with all her trinkets. It was a successful evening, as far as Sam was concerned (and us too).

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