Avalon 2010!

I know I am not the best with the blog on a regular basis but, I promise it will get better! We are finally back from our last vacation of the summer and I can catch up with this thing! I am sorry to those who check frequently and to your disappointment there is nothing to read! My mother-in-law is not the only one who gets upset with me! :) I am about to post 5 posts in the next two days, so stay tuned! I am hoping that my children will leave me alone for five seconds to get this done!

At the end of July we took our annual family trip to Avalon, NJ (AKA the Jersey Shore) and no I did not see Snooki or the Situation up there! This is always a fun trip that we look forward to each summer. The trip going this year was for the first time, easy! We did learn that we need to pack lighter for the airplane from now on though! The kids can be entertained with less stuff!!! The flight is an hour and a half, so not that bad. The kids were excited and it was Henley’s first time to know that she was on an airplane...flying. Once we touched down in Philadelphia there is an hour and half drive over to the shore. Both the kids took a nap which was great because they needed it!

Once we got there we were greeted by the whole family. This is Brian’s mom’s family and there are about 22 of us each year at this trip. We have a lot of fun because the kids have their cousins to play with who are older, so it works out great! They are like little entertainers for them and it definitely wears them out every day/night. Debbie Forrey, Brian’s cousin has a house down there and she is the planner of all planners every vacation. Every night dinner, a themed dinner at that is planned out. Every couple is assigned either a drink, appetizer or dessert to make. Debbie made all the meals and I have to say, they were FABULOUS! I still need to get a couple recipes from her.

Every night, like I told you earlier we went to Debbie’s for dinner. The kids would all play and the adults could socialize as much as you can with a 1 and  3 year old. It was a wonderful vacation and thank you to everybody that plays a part in making this happen every year! It is so nice to see how everyone and their kids are doing. It amazes me how fast everyone has grown up and what they are accomplishing already. I am sure when I blink, our children will be there soon enough. Enjoy all the pictures!

Each day was filled with playing on the beach. Both our kids have really come to love the Ocean this year and could play in it all day! Usually, the water is pretty cold but, this year they had a heat spell and the water was supposed to be in the 80’s. I am not so sure if it was but, the kids enjoyed it! The one thing that I love about the shore is that you usually can sit outside all day and not sweat. However, this year was a lot different. It was HOT! There is nothing like hot weather to drain you and make you sooo tired! I went in every afternoon to rest while Henley took her nap and it was nice to just sit and do nothing. This is a luxury that I generally do not get at home! The kids would stay out on the beach and play. There were sand castles, shell collections, surfing, wake board riding, baseball and even chasing the seagulls! The seagulls are much more aggressive up there! They completely stole a cracker out of poor, unsuspecting Preston’s hand one day! It was insane how crazy those birds were...what is that movie called with the birds that attacked? It was like that if you had any food near you!