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.

Back to the Grind

Well, it's back to the grind after another great week of vacation. We started the week with a nine hour miserable car ride to NH, then went to Norway and Paris (Maine, that is) before heading back to Mass. Ben's now been to playgrounds in five different states! He also went on a train ride, went blueberry picking, went swimming and on a boat ride. He also saw lots of relatives, like his aunt, two sets of grandparents and his two great grandmothers. Here are some pictures.

On the train with Grammie and Pepere.

Picking blueberries at Grampy and Grammy's

Blowing bubbles with cousin Brooke

J.R. and I went to Fenway to watch the Sox take on the Yankees. Unfortunately, it was boring game with few hits, and even worse, the Yankees won. We had awesome seats though and J.R. was able to be at Fenway for a game.

Every time Jeter came up to bat I'd shout "I hate you but you're hot!" Hey, Yankee or not, he's hot.

It was Papi's first night back.

I'm still horrified that the Red Sox have a mascot (Wally - get it, Wall-y the Green Monster?), but here's J.R. sitting with a statue of him.

Other highlights of the night included Leanne Rhimes singing the National Anthem, Kenny Chesney throwing out the first pitch (I'm not into Country music but thought it was cool they were there - even I know who they are) and Jack Nicholaus threw out a ball too. We also saw Beckett pitch for the Sox, and Chamberlain and Rivera pitch for the Yankees. Rivera was not met with kind applause.

The first day back to daycare for Ben was good in the morning...Ben went right to a toy and started playing. I didn't even kiss him goodbye because he was to busy washing his hands. He cried when I picked him up though. He was behind a chain link fence and was all upset because he couldn't get to me. He cried when I dropped him off yesterday and today, and cried again both days when I picked him up too. I understand the dropping off cry, but it's strange that instead of being happy to see me and giving me a great smile (and boy are those smiles great) as he runs to me, he gets upset because he can't get to me fast enough. I'm hoping that now that he's going to daycare five days a week, he'll get better. Although, he's definitely at the age where separation is a stressor on him. Poor guy. Another stage he's in is the "what's that" stage. He points to everything and says "dat". It's cute, but I'm sure soon, it'll be annoying. He likes trucks and loves busses. Today we were in the kitchen and he heard a bus go by and said "dat". He said "ball" over vaca too. He has also signed "more" a few times lately and does "all done". We've been trying to teach him sign language for 7 months now and he hasn't done anything. He recognizes eat, and more, but to him, eat is opening his mouth and more is reaching out and/or opening his mouth. His "more" looks like he's waving to his food. It's cute. Because of that, though, I think he probably did it a few times before we realized what he was doing. Tonight he was eating blueberries and he was making noise/fussing a bit because he wanted more. Well, my back was towards him so he had to get my attention somehow. Once, I looked back at him to see what he was up to (he was in his high chair, I was washing dishes) and he looked at me and did "more" perfectly. He did it over vacation too. What's really great is that he did it, like I said, perfectly, just like J.R. or I would do it (more is making all your fingertips touch each other). A lot of times, kids will point with one finger to the palm of their other hand. We've let a lot of other signs go, but I'm trying to pick back up on "sleepy/tired", and "bed/sleep" as in go to bed. Speaking of bed...yeah, he's back to wanting to go to bed at 10pm. Sigh.

Vacation Ends but the Fun Continues

Well, one vacation down, another yet to come. We finished up at the beach with a fun playground trip (Ben loved the swings and the slide), a water park (Ben didn't love that so much) and a rainy trip to Assateague. J.R. and I got to have a nice night out by ourselves too. We went back to work for a couple of days, then took a pre-vacation #2 trip to Knoebels. It was a long ride, but we really had a great time. Besides the rides at the beach, it was Ben's first trip to a real amusement park. I think our favorite thing may have been Ben in the ball pit. We weren't sure what he'd think of it, but being the kid that he is, he of course loved it. We were also excited to see Ben dance. Yup, he's been quite the dancer lately, moving side to side with a big smile on his face. Now he's adding hand movements too.

This is Ben on his way to sneak a crab onto Grandpa's boat!

I didn't know which dancing video to post, so I decided to post both!