Summering at the Cape

We had a marvelous time in Cape Cod with our little family (and Jillian ;).  It was all really last minute.  I was looking around on Craigslist and there was a last minute house rental special for the rest of June since no one had rented it yet.  It was the perfect size, price and location for us, and after I contacted the owners, it all fell perfectly into place.  Of course, I completely forgot to take a picture of the cute house, as well as our totally awesome gangsta' rental car.  It was one of these babies:

That's right, we were riding in style!

We left on Thursday afternoon with every spare inch of the car packed with clothes, food, carseats, kids, and whatever else we thought we could possibly need during our week away.  I can't describe how big of a pain it is to get out of the city when you don't own a car.  First Nate had to take the train and bus to Teaneck, NJ (over a hundred dollars cheaper than getting a car in the city) to get the car, then he had to drive it back.  Then we packed the car.  We don't have any carseats out here, so we piled in the car with Bart on my lap.  Thank goodness the back windows were seriously tinted.  Driving the 10 minutes to my friends apt to pick up the carseat felt like a lifetime with the kids crawling all over the place and touching everything.  Finally, with the kids strapped in their carseats, we were on our way.  We got in around midnight and went straight to bed to gear up for a week of beach fun.

Here is our trip in pictures...

First up, mini golf.  The kids were SO excited to do this.  It was super expensive, but I think it was worth it for the fun they had.

 Sayer's golfing was awesome.  He would basically put the ball right next to the hole, and then proceed to take about 4 or 5 shots to get it in.  Eventually he would just push the ball in with his club.

 Waiting patiently for the people in front of us to finish

 The obligatory picture of me, to prove I was actually there

The obligatory picture of Bart.  He seemed pretty bored in the stroller, but he was so good.  Not a peep from him the entire time.

I can't remember what this place was called, but it was sure pretty.

 We were going to go to the beach there, but it was pretty un-impressive, so after we had our fill of scenery, we headed to Seagull Beach.

 Seagull Beach.  This beach was about a mile away from the house, but it cost money, so it was a little bigger.  The kids loved it.  Asher made tons of friends that day.  He probably talked to the lifeguards for a total of an hour.  Asking them all kinds of questions I'm sure.  I wasn't over there with him, but they were really nice and talked to him and answered his questions and showed him stuff.  I made sure to thank them for being so nice to him.  I said he likes to talk, and they said, yeah, he likes to talk a lot!

 Bart was completely fearless at the beach.  He would just walk straight out to the water and walk in.  The water was a little cold, but not too unbearable.  There weren't really any waves, which I was sad about at first, but then I was really glad because it made it so much easier for the boys to swim.  And swim they did, whether it was warm or cold outside, they didn't care.

 Bart also loved to stand on the beach chairs.  Don't ask me why, but he spent a good portion of his times on the beach scaling the chairs and lounge.  Isn't he just a doll?!  He had lots of admirers at the beach.

Private Beach.  This was the private beach down the road from the house that we had access too.  It was actually really nice.  Very small, but really calm and shallow waters.  Not to mention beautiful homes to look at!

 Bart loved the water.  He would just sit there and splash and throw rocks for 20 minutes at a time.

 The boys made lots of friends on this day as well.  I was so impressed with how brave Sayer was.  I expected him to be too scared to swim, but he would just head on out there.

 On this particular day, Asher was standing on a fence by the beach houses and couldn't get down so he started calling for me.  Right before I reached him, he slipped backwards and hit his forehead right on the corner of a rock.  I was so worried that he was going to need another round of stitches, but it barely broke the skin, although it bled plenty.  Poor thing.  I was able to remain calm this time though, so that's progress. :)

 Jillian arrived on this day and met us at the beach.  The boys were so excited to have her there, and she was so great to play with them.

 The view from the beach

Look at those beautiful houses.  Not too shabby!

Dennis.  This was my favorite place in Cape Cod.  It was this cute little town with beautiful homes and parks and fun restaurants.  If we ever go back, that is where I want to stay.  This beach was a great beach too.  Nice and big.

 We discovered boogy boards in the garage of our house and brought them to the beach and the kids were in heaven.  They had been trying to steal other kids boards the previous days.

 Sayer said: "mom, I's like yours babing suit!" and then gave me the thumbs up.  Such a cute kid!  I actually bought a new swimsuit for this trip.  The process of buying it was made even sweeter due to the fact that I was able to buy it in the size I wanted to be wearing!!  Happiness.

 I loved this rock jetty, or whatever it's called.  I wish I could've stood on it and gotten a picture of the ocean.  This was one of the few beaches that wasn't a cove, but a huge span of ocean.

 Barty had no problems entertaining himself.  On this day, he did get super cranky.  He was so tired, not to mention covered in sand.  It made for one sad baby boy.

 Playing in the mud.  Doesn't get much better than that for little boys.

 I don't know what he was doing on the boogie board-- some sort of yoga/plank poses.

 This was a really cool area.  It was like a sandbar or tide pool area.  The water had gone out and there were lots of little crabs and fishes that the kids could pick up.  They loved it of course.  I love this picture of Sayer in his hat. It reminds me of my dad and how he sometimes wears his hats just barely touching the top of his head.  He looks like a little truck driver.

 Bart-- wet, sandy, licorice faced... it wasn't long after this picture that he started to lose it and Nate too him to get showered and change.  He was done.  I love his belly in this picture.

We had seen this really cool playground on the way to the beach, so we decided to go there after the beach.  It was in such a pretty area and had really cool things to play on.  The kids had a blast.  Right after this we walked down to the ice cream parlor and had some of the best ice cream I've ever had in my life.  I think it was called french raspberry truffle.  mmmmmm... it was SO good!

Provincetown.  Otherwise known as P-town.  We drove about an hour to get there, and despite Jillian having to hold Asher on her lap the entire time (again, thank goodness for those tinted windows) we were not sorry that we did.

 First stop was the Lobster Pot.  It was delicious.  An older couple on their way out stopped to admire our adorable children and to say how well behaved they were.  Ha!  I had to tell them that our secret was that they were actually watching Kipper on Nate's iphone.  But, happy and well behaved they were.  And they ate all their food, which is always a bonus.  Bart stayed happy with crackers and bread before I fed him his lunch and left to put him to sleep in the stroller.  On my walk to put him down, I was able to pop into some stores and get some christmas ornaments to remember our trip by.

  I am not a huge lobster girl, so I played it safe with the lobster ravioli, but Jill and Nate went all out, bibs and all!

 After lunch we decided to hit up another playground, which the kids loved.  To be honest, we were waiting for it to get a little later so that we wouldn't have to pay to go to the beach.  How cheap are we?!

 After the playground, we went to the National Sea Shore visitor's center which was actually really cool.  Beautiful views, a cool movie and lots of fun books for the kids to peruse.  We finished up there around 5pm and headed straight to the beach.

 This was one of my favorite beach times.  There was practically no one there, the sun was setting, it wasn't too hot, the boys were having a blast,

 It was beautiful,

 and I got this adorable picture...

 Bart in his diaper, sitting next to his dad, playing with rocks and water.  I think they sat like that for about 30 minutes.  It was such a precious sight.

 and then he made his way back up to me and Jill, saggy diaper and all.

 Taking a little break for some Trader Joe's cereal bars.  Love those!  I think we went through about 5 boxes during the week.

 Again, the token picture of me.

I think we would have stayed here a lot longer, but the kids were getting really hungry so we had to head out.  It was so beautiful and peaceful though.  We went to the grocery store, got some dinner, took it back to the playground for a picnic, then piled in the car to head back home.  We got back really late and the kids went right to sleep.  It was the perfect last day.

The next morning we packed up and left around 10am.  It was a long drive home, and it took the kids a couple of days to get over their sleep deprivation, but it was all worth it.  A week full of beach days and absolutely perfect weather was just what our family needed. 

Adventures that were not pictured include Nate taking the boys to Cars 2, which he was disappointed with, but the boys had fun seeing their first movie in the theaters.  Nate says he thinks their favorite part was the popcorn and lemonade.  Not surprising.  I think he took them on Sunday.  I stayed home with Bart that day and read an entire book from start to finish.  It was nice!

Also not pictured are our fun-filled evenings, which consisted of a lot of reading (I read 3 books), 

Ok, so I guess we have this one picture of me reading.

movies, brownies and ice cream, and my personal favorite, Tosh.0.  A tad on the crude and inappropriate side, but man, I laugh so hard at that show.