Marshall Family

We were so happy to get to spend most of a week with Scott, Ashley and Caroline. They flew from California to see us. It's been over a year since our family has seen them, and that's WAY too long. :) Unfortunately Brian couldn't be up in NJ that week. Hopefully we can make our way to CA sometime in the near future.

The cousins had a fun time playing in the sand, the ocean, the bay, the kiddie pool, and at the house. It was fun to see Caroline as a little girl and not a baby anymore. She has changed so much!

We found a sandcrab and put it in a bucket. For about 20 minutes I sat with the 3 kids as they had me dig out the crab so they could watch him dig back in...poor sandcrab. :)

Bridget, Dillon and Caroline took to each other right away. Here are 2 movie starlets in Aunt Sarah's sunglasses! And one of their favorite things to do was play 'bedtime' in Aunt Sarah's bed.

Caroline had her first ride in the kid seat on the bike...it was fun to ride with Daddy. :)

Of course, we had to have ice cream...a summer favorite!

It's nice to share and Dillon is always willing to share his ice cream (his sister...not so much).

We headed back to the beach one night after everyone showered to take some pictures! I think we got some good ones. The lifeguard stand was the highlight...as usual.

We were sad to say goodbye!

Oh goodness! I should have been doing this the whole time we were at the beach. As I sit down now and start to look through the over 800 pictures I have...I don't know where to begin.
We got to the shore on July 3rd. Brian was with us for the first week and we had a lot of fun with him...going to the beach, the bay, riding bikes, going for ice cream...basically relaxing!
We celebrated the 4th of July by going to the fireworks in Beach Haven. The finale was our favorite part of course!

Bridget had a new bike this year, it was a tag-along bike. She loved going for rides as the 3rd wheel and felt like she was really riding a bike. I hope that it gives her more confidence to start riding her bike here in NC. Dillon is still under the 40lb weight limit on the child bike seat, so he had fun riding back there.

Waiting for a bike ride!

The beach is the highlight of being at the shore of course. Nothing can really beat the fresh air (and sometimes wind), ocean, and fun in the sand. Both kids love being at the beach - and have been more adventurous about going in the water this year. I'm loving that! They love lowtide. Bridget is especially pleased b/c she can jump the waves by herself. When it is calmer at higher tide she comes in the water with us too. A few times they have been in the water when it was rough and we had to go under - it was necessary - that was not met with a good reaction. I think I'm going to have to do swim lessons in the winter...they have to get comfortable with going under the water sometime! Brian and I both tried to get some reading time in...it wasn't easy. I did manage to read 3 books over the summer, I think that's more books than I've read all year!

Bridget's favorite pastime is getting sand everywhere possible. She sits, lays and rolls in the sand. Often she is building some small castle with her imagination going wild about mermaids or princesses. Her other love has been jumping in the low waves. She is so outgoing she made several friends while we were there. It's unfortunate that none of them were there all summer. However, there are a couple of friends that come for a week every summer...so we know we'll see them again next year. Summer friends are fun!

Dillon's favorite question on the beach is "Will you play paddle with me?!" Well, I should say questions because these 2 were often heard too: "Will you play football with me? Will you play baseball with me?" Instead of the child who wants you to build endless sand castles or dig to China, I have the child who can't get enough of sports...no matter where we are! I see lots of evenings spent at little league practice in our future. We did manage to get to 6 hits of the paddleball and I think that's pretty good for a 2 1/2 year old!!

Can't have a summer at the beach without jumping off the lifeguard stand everyday!! Bridget liked to put on "shows" up there. Dillon liked to pretend he was the lifeguard telling people to swim in the flag area. Bridget jumped by herself for the first time this year.

Airplane!

Who knew goggles from the $1 store could be so fun?!

We like to go to sunset at the bay...but miss it a lot b/c we're either eating dinner at that time, or getting ready to eat. We did make it a couple of times. This time we missed the actual sunset for pictures, but took some pics by the bay.