The Beach for Realz

We've been to plenty of "beaches" this summer, but none were the real thing - the ocean beach.

As soon as we sat down on the beach the weekend of August 17, I knew what I had been missing, the sweet and salty smell of the ocean air, the feel of warm sand beneath my feet, and the sound of pounding waves rhythmically crashing onto the shore.

Cape Cod. It is as close to a summer "home" as I've ever had. Keith and I have been going there regularly for almost 10 years. We only skipped a year (2010) when Cole was born (and it wasn't even a thought - there was no way we, as new parents, were going to take a 2 month old on a 6 hour drive thank you very much.)

Last year our camping trip to Brewster, Cape Cod was spontaneous and fun, so we knew this year's trip to our usual location of North Truro would be a blast. Plus it involved our good friends, Allison, Shawn and their two-year-old, Juniper. The only thing better than one two-year-old is two two-year-olds. Aside from the typical struggles kids their age have with sharing, these two had a lot of fun together.

Sleep
The first night of camping is always the worst for us. Cole just doesn't want to go to sleep, no matter how tired he is. In fact he seems to get a second wind once we reach the tent and bounces around in it for at least an hour. The first night always involves crying and screaming and words of frustration uttered by everyone inside said tent. But each night after that it gets easier and easier, until it's time to go home, in which case you don't want to leave because it was so damn easy to get him to fall asleep. The same cannot be said for naps though. Cole is just a flat out nap refuser on vacations. If he's not in the recliner with Mama or Dada or in his crib, it's no dice. He's not sleeping. Of course, he has no problem sleeping in the car on vacations, but we are not always keen on JUST taking the car out for a spin to get him to nap - that is unless we are desperate for some quiet time and he is just plain bananas for lack of sleep.

Cole's Vices - tv and ice pops
Cole totally forgot about television on this vacation. It helped that we've been scaling back at home significantly so that really made a difference in terms of Cole's longings. He really (and still does) just wanted ice pops. He was much too distracted by playtime with Juni, logs and twigs, pine needles and sand.

The Beach
We made it to the beach for two good trips. The first was a windy,  kite flying, hat wearing, misty kind of afternoon. The second was a beautiful, perfect, sunny day with 75-80 degree air temperature, but a nice cool breeze. No sweating or baking in the sun. Only perfect contentment 15 feet away from the shoreline. Allison and I even went in for a nice swim and a little wave riding. As usual, we spotted seals swimming not too far from the shore. But warning had it that where there were seals, there would be sharks. A man had been attacked at a nearby beach because he attempted to swim with the seals. So there were shark warning signs on the beach. The downside of this beach experience was our toddlers' experience in the sand. Cole was not much interested in the ocean - way too noisy and forceful. He was fascinated by the sand. This meant a lot of playing in the sand. This was fun for the most part, but when Juni threw sand into Cole's face and when Cole threw sand into Allison's face - those were not so good times. (These sand-flinging events happened on two completely separate occasions on the same afternoon).

P-town/Wellfleet
These are our two favorite destinations when we head to Cape Cod (one is north and one is south of where we camp). P-town for its amazing people watching and Wellfleet for the cute shops and beautiful harbor and of course let's not forget the fresh seafood, since Wellfleet is a popular fishing village.
We managed an afternoon excursion into P-town where Dada did some baby wearing and Cole did some ice-cream eating. And we headed to Wellfleet for a delicious dinner at Mac's Seafood Shack (right on the harbor) and a gorgeous sunset walk on the docks and along the shore during low tide.

Cole and Juni at play
These two had a lot of fun playing with each other's toys, balancing on logs, running through towels, having tea parties, story time together, building sand castles. Once, Cole even turned down a chance to help Mama because he was too busy trying to "help" Juni bring her suitcase to her car. A gentleman in the making!

Our family of three time
On the last day of our trip was decided we were going to stay an extra night and enjoy our last vacation together as a family of three. So we headed down Cape to Hyannis where we had a fun time on the town (even though Hyannis is a small village, it feels like a little city). The only downside of the entire trip occurred during this family time. Cole threw a yellow plastic sand castle out the car window somewhere between Yarmouth and Hyannis. He still talks about and gets upset about this event to this day. (Just an FYI - he started to hysterically cry so much that we stopped a few minutes later to buy him two more plastic sand castles. No matter. Those castles will never add up to the one he threw out the window, which he, apparently, misses dearly.)

Cole's first boat ride
We took a trip on the Duckmobile, a unique (and war-made) land and water mobile, that tours the village of Hyannis and the harbor. He loves to watch the 13 second video clip I took of him in the seat next to the edge of the "boat" when we were in the water. He had so much fun on this 45 minute ride that he cried when we got off.


As far as pictures go, we shot a ton with our iPhones and some with our Canon Elph. I don't want to bombard you with pictures a month after the fact, but this is also a place where I'm pretty much documenting our life (well, as much as I can anyway) so whatever will be will be...