Beach Vacation

We just came back from a long weekend at the beach. Although I'm not much for laying in the sand and getting sunburned and sweaty, it's nice having in-laws that live at the beach. We went for lunch/dinner/drinks at bayside restaurants,

took boat rides and went fishing, saw fireworks (from the boat), had another birthday party for Ben, played games on the boardwalk,

and took Ben to a waterpark.

We had a really great time. We were able to spend time with family and enjoyed being away from home for a few days. We were lucky to spend time with Aunt Nancy, who we only see once a year.

I did a total mommy thing...something I thought I'd never do. A few weeks ago I bought matching 4th of July t-shirts for all of us to wear! So silly, but it was fun. We wore them on the boat when we watched the fireworks. Aaron fell asleep for his first fireworks. Actually, I think they were Ben's first fireworks too; last year for the 4th there was a bad lightning storm so we ended up watching Mother Nature's fireworks. From our spot on the bay, we could see fireworks all up and down the coast of Ocean City. Ben had fun finding the "booms" and pointing them out to us. However, he fell alseep on J.R.'s lap before the big firework displays started.

I think my favorite part of the weekend was taking Ben to the waterpark. Last year he hated it, but this year not only was he a year older, but we just let him do whatever he wanted. He immediately went to the kid's waterslide and went down a few times, hesitantly at first, but he did well. He tried to squish the small water fountain in the pool

and we went in the lazy river.

I took him down the big waterslide, but he didn't like it when we went under water at the end. After sitting on my lap for a while, he went back to the kid's slide. I'm not lying when I say he must have gone down 40-50 times. He was practically the only slider, so the lifeguard was paying special attention to him. She was running down the steps and picking him up to take him to the top. He could have climbed the steps himself, but I think she had a crush on him :) He got spoiled from the star treatment and started to call for her if he had to wait for her to get to the bottom of the step. So funny. What a little rock star! Here's video of him sliding.