Monday, July 11, 2011
Summery Vacation 2011
Family Vacation in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ
July 4-8, 2011
I had to work on a proposal that was due on Tuesday, July 5 (yes, the Government has a mean streak) so our vacation started a little later than we had planned. I was working 15-16 hour days for two weeks leading up to the vacation – including up to 10:00 p.m. Sunday night. So Monday morning we hit the road finally! Given that it was a holiday (the 4th of July), we were lucky not to hit any traffic. We left the house with a very full car at 9:45 a.m. (packing took a full day!), stopped once for lunch, and arrived at our hotel at 1:45 p.m. Not bad! Of course, not ten minutes into the trip Cole says, "Are we close yet?" Very bad sign, but we managed to distract him with coloring books, a drawing pad, some reading books and finally he slept for a bit. Kira was a breeze – she slept almost the entire way and when she was awake she was content to color and draw as well.
We stayed at the "White Sands" hotel – right on the beach, two pools, and two blocks away from the boardwalk. It was perfect. Our room was situated with as a room within a room. The main room had a king size bed, bathroom, table and chairs, refrigerator, microwave, wardrobe, dressers and TV. Very nice size. Then there was a room off of that containing a queen size bed, another TV and more dressers. It was great because we could put the kids to bed in that room and then watch TV in our room, or, what we did instead, was sit outside our room in lawn chairs drinking wine. We could go in and out of the room, shower, do whatever and not wake up the kids. It was great. And we were steps from the pool – so if we needed something from the room during the day it wasn't a big deal to go and get it.
We got SO LUCKY with the weather, too. It was beautiful every day – rained one afternoon, but held until we got home from the boardwalk around 6:30/7:00 p.m. When we arrived on Monday Cole wanted to go straight to the boardwalk to ride the rides so we checked in and walked down to the boardwalk. Bought a pack of tickets for the rides that we hoped would last us the entire week (almost did) and the kids had a blast. This was the first year Kira could ride anything and I was very excited to take pics of Cole and Kira on the rides together, just like there are pics of me and Michelle on those very same rides from many years ago. Of course, they have added a few new ones – including Kira's favorite, the flying fish. If you ask Cole he'll tell you the helicopter ride was 
his favorite – because it flies up high – but you definitely can't tell that from the pictures! It was one of those rides that Kira was too small to go on and adults were not allowed to ride so Cole rode it all by himself and the three of us watched him – unsure if he was enjoying it or petrified! We laughed at the look on his face the whole ride and were relieved to find out he was just concentrating on flying the helicopter.
After the boardwalk the first day we went back to the hotel room to unpack and change into bathing suits. By this time it was about 5:00 and we hit the beach as it was emptying out – it was so nice. Cole surprised us by running straight for the waves. He had plenty of space to play and he ran up and down the beach chasing the waves. Kira was not as enthralled. She shied away from the ocean for awhile and busied herself with the birds. She tried to pet a few seagulls, much to my dismay. I was afraid one of them would find her tasty! We started to get hungry after about an hour of running around in the sand and so I sent Dave back to the boardwalk to get a large pizza pie from Pizza Plus – one of the many places I worked on the boardwalk while in high school. Dave told the owner, Mike, that he was married to "Jessica Ingenito" and Mike asked that I stop by with the family while we were there (which I did on Friday – and when I introduced him to Cole he said "your mama used to work here a LONG time ago!" haha, very funny, I know I'm old!). Anyway, we enjoyed that pizza back in the room in our kitchenette and it was heavenly. Oh, how I miss Jersey pizza! Even the kids loved it – they inhaled their pieces, which are huge!
We were uncertain how the sleeping arrangement would work out – putting both Cole and Kira in the same bed. Dave pushed the bed against the wall and put the chairs from the kitchenette against the other side of the bed with pillows against them so both sides of the bed were protected, and then folded a blanket to put between them on the bed. I had purchased three new books to read to them each night and so we read in the king bed and then put them to sleep in their room. That first night Dave and I watched them on the monitor after we closed the door and It was HYSTERICAL. (See video – next post.) Probably difficult to tell what's happening but Kira keeps leaning over to Cole's side and hitting him in the head with her doll and then giggling. Then Cole yells, "Kira, go to sleep!" And then Kira stands up like she is trying to crawl up on the headboard and Cole yells "Kira, stop it! Go to sleep!" and he is getting increasingly frustrated at her inability to behave and go to sleep. We laughed and laughed and then finally Dave opens the door and yells at Kira and she lays down and goes to sleep. We were pleasantly surprised when every other night went without a hitch.
The routine for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday was the same – wake up at 7:00 a.m. when the kids hop off the bottom of their bed, open their door, and come jump on our bed. We packed a cooler of food (which we transferred to the fridge) so we had cereal for breakfast, or cereal bars or bagels. Then we headed down to the beach…about a three minute walk. Three out of the four mornings we were the first or second family there around 8 or 8:30 a.m. We'd hang out there til about 10:30 a.m. then walk back up to the pool until 12:30, when we'd head back to the room for lunch. We would sandwiches and then all four of us would nap! Around 3:00 we'd wake up, shower, get dressed and head to the boardwalk for ride time. One night we ate out on the Pier at Martell's (on the boardwalk) outside to enjoy the ocean breezes and another night we went to a fancier joint – the Wharfside, right on the Inlet, and also outside.
The rides were mostly the same – train, carousel, flying fish, alligators, boats, swings, motorcycles, helicopters, and flying elephants. Except one night Kira decided she wanted to go on the roller coaster. We asked Cole if he wanted to go on it and he said "NO WAY!" Dave took him and Kira on the "Dizzy Dragons" one afternoon too (think Tilt-a-Whirl) and they weren't so thrilled with the spinning. So I was worried about taking Kira on a roller coaster. I asked the guy if children her size normally went on and he said yes and they did fine. So…after she asked me "go, Mama" for ten minutes straight we finally got on. (Dave got it all on video so will have to get him to post it.) The first time we went around the corner I was like "oh crap – this g-force is way more than I was expecting for such a little roller coaster!" I asked Kira if she wanted to go around again and she said "nope" in a very soft voice. Unfortunately, we were going to go around about six more times. She was amazing – didn't cry, didn't yell, just sat there stoically until the last time around when she climbed onto me and put her head on my shoulder. Then we got off the ride and I said "Did you like that ride?" and in her soft, sweet voice she said "Yes, mama." So…the jury is out on that one.
We played three boardwalk games too. The frog game – which is near impossible to win but fun to use the mallet to make those frogs go flying. The water gun game – where we won a dolphin for Cole (he named him Dolphie) and a ball for Kira. Actually, we didn't win. We were the only ones playing (a guaranteed win) and then a family walked up at the last second and the son beat us. However, he didn't want any of the prizes and offered his win to us – so nice! So we were able to get a prize for each of the kids. Win, win, win! And then while Kira and I were riding one last ride on our last day, Cole and Dave played the whack-a-mole game and won a huge Green Lantern stuffed animal. It's bigger than Cole! And he loves it…so all in all a very successful boardwalk outing each day!
I am still in awe at how good the kids were the whole week. At the beach Cole not only ran around chasing waves, but also easily made friends. He and a little boy named Tyler became fast friends as they chased the waves together – also four years old…Kira played in the sand "building" castles (or dumping sand in a bucket of water) together with another little girl at the edge of the waves – a three year old whose name I already forget. The next day Kira and Cole found a huge hole in the sand and immediately jumped in with two other kids – a little boy named Vinnie (22 months) and his big sister, Maria ( 3 ½ yrs old). In the pool they befriended Albie (almost two years old) and his big sister (six years old) who let Cole and Kira play on their pool toys – a floating car and a floating dolphin. The parents of all these children were super nice, too. Dave and I enjoyed chatting with them all. We had excellent hotel neighbors, too. We sat outside the room chatting and drinking wine after the kids went to bed and the people on either side of us stopped by to chat and comment on the kids and how cute they were. It was amazing how nice everyone was and how everything went so smoothly. On the last morning a little girl named Genevieve offered Cole one of her huge shovels and the two of them had a blast digging and then chasing the waves. When we left Dave said "now I know why people take their kids' friends on vacation with them – keeps the kids having fun and distracted so the parents can relax for a minute!" Kira, while happy to play with the other kids, always wanted momma nearby. She is definitely a momma's girl right now and often wanted to be sitting on my lap or have me pick her up. By the end of the week my back was very sore. She is so difficult to resist though!
Cole is such a good big brother, too. He and Kira would be on the rides together and he would always make sure she was doing okay. One time they were on the flying fish and the seats were almost all taken so they ended up on opposite sides of the circle, rather than right behind each other like we'd been doing. So during the ride Cole starts yelling "Hi Kira!" to her and waving and she waved back at him. It was so cute!
On the last day we went to the beach, showered and packed up the room, went to the boardwalk and had one last slice of Jersey pizza for lunch, and then rode the rides one last time. We headed home at 2:00 p.m. and 10 minutes into the trip the sky opened up and started pouring rain …and it lasted the entire drive home! We could not believe how lucky we were that we had such beautiful weather the entire week and it held all the way until we started driving home. And THEN we hit some traffic on the Turnpike and realized we were luckier than we even realized – see photo – as we saw that our traffic was due to an accident on the northbound lanes that our side was slowing down to look at. I can't even imagine how bad that would have been had we been on the opposite side. The truck blocked all three lanes and the traffic was stopped on that side for MILES! Thankfully, we were not and our drive home was only delayed an hour due to traffic and rain.
Hooray for a WONDERFUL family vacation – I could not be happier!!!
(No beach pics in this post because we used the "nice" camera for those pics –not the iPhone. Will have to post those separately!)
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