A day at the beach

Nearly my whole family has been in Maryland for 3 summers now, and we're still working on making this place home.  There are so many great things that we love about being in the Mid-Atlantic Region that we couldn't have done when we lived in California, Missouri, Nevada, or Florida, but there are some things about living in those places that we really miss being part of our lives.  When we lived in Missouri, we had all sorts of places that we went camping and hiking or floating down the river at a moment's notice.  In California and Florida, we could be at the beach within an hour or two of deciding to go.  Going to the beach  is a much bigger undertaking here.   All the beaches are several hours drive away, and with all of these small children, it's not really a day trip.  

We tried the beach at Ocean City, MD, and it was okay but during the summer months it's hard to find places that will allow our dogs.  The beaches in Rohoboth, DE allow the dogs, but they didn't have much else to do.  Last week, my mother decided that we should try Atlantic City. We started with a mid-week trip, so Alfred stayed home with the pups.  I'll have to check into whether there are places we can bring our puppies with us, but on every other count Atlantic City was much more our speed than any of the other beaches we've been to out here. 

We stayed a few miles from the beach to save a little money, but I don't think we would do that again with all the kids.  It's important when you travel with children to be able to go back to your room whenever they need down time or a nap or a bath.  If there's one thing that I've learned since I've had kids, it's that I don't have it in me to load them into the car for more than one trip from home a day.  Thus, once we went back to the hotel with the kids, they weren't leaving again until the next day.

I think that we will be going back to Atlantic City because compared to the other beach towns we've been to here, it was much less expensive.  The beach was clean and had a nice boardwalk with lots of restaurants and shops.  When the kids are a little bigger, I'm sure it will be lots of fun to take them to the Atlantic City beach because they have a great little amusement park on a pier right next to the beach. 

The girls had a great time on the beach.  We rolled a beach ball around to warm up (if you're used to water in Florida, the ocean in Atlantic City will seem downright frigid) before trying to run into the water.  The kids are still pretty little, so all of them are in life jackets whenever we are anywhere near the water.  I think they look super adorable...if a little uncomfortable

I'm still terrified of Michaela getting a sun burn, so she stayed with my dad on the beach blanket under the umbrellas, being smothered in layers of sunblock.

After all the girls were done with the water, we all made sand castles (yes they had to keep the life jackets on, these girls have the tendency to bolt)!

It was fabulous to have a bit of fun time with the family!