Pirates and Boats . . . ARRRGH!

Saturday we spent the morning downtown with Nana & Pop Pop at the Wooden Boat Show/Ice Cream Festival. . . We went last year too, and Liam remembered the Pirates that were there.

Luckily, they were there again this year. Here we are with Captain Black . . .

. . . and this may be our new alternative to time-out . . .

They had a boat building tent where you could build your own little wood boat with a sail . . .

Then Pop Pop and Liam set sail . . .

. . . and spent some more of the afternoon at Aunt Jac's crabbing and kayaking . . .

Nothing like fresh air - will time please slow down so summer doesn't fade away so fast

Soak it up. . .

Liam and I had a great summer day today . . . makes me wish we had this lifestyle everyday of the year. After the gym we stopped by the town pool where Aunt Jac teaches lessons. Before the pool opened to the public Liam went for a swim . . .

. . . and a ride down the slide . . .
then we spent the day in our pool and he actually took a nap - we went to swim practice and then we surprised Casey at the Seaside Park Lifeguard Tournament. . .

Best seat in the house to watch Daddy in the run relay . . .

. . . and since he took a nap, and could see the boardwalk rides from the tournament, I told him he could pick one ride to go on. . . after much thought he chose the cars . . . and then the best part of the whole day was our long walk down the Seaside Park boardwalk to the car eating our soft pretzles and holding hands . . . I wish everyday could be this good

Lifeguard in Training

In case you haven't met us . . . we love the beach! :)

We go often, as evidenced by Liam's savage tan - and I swear he wears sunscreen everyday!

The more we go, the more Liam thinks he works or owns the beach.

When your Dad is one of the officers there, you get some perks:

there's always someone you know nearby who can take family photos for you :) . . .

You get to play with the lifeguard gear . . .

. . . There's always a lifeguard around who wants to take you in the waves so Mommy doesn't have to get wet . . .

. . . you can start prepping about 6 years early for Junior Guards

. . . and your tan makes you super studly which gets the girls attention :)

My little lifeguard - the tradition continues

Summer is going too fast . . .

We've been so busy lately, I've taken lots of photos, but haven't had time to update the blog. Can't believe it's the middle of July already . . . will time please slow down???

We've been enjoying our pool and Liam loves doing Super Hero jumps off the diving board - I think this one is Green Lantern (who knows?) . . .

We spent 4th of July night at Aunt Jaclyn's house on the river. . . best view of the fireworks ever and the place I've spent almost every 4th of July of my entire life . . . love passing that on to Liam.

He was so excited for the fireworks and was jumping up and down the whole time they were going off. . .
The day after the 4th of July is my birthday . . . the BIG 3-0 this year . . . so I spent it at the beach with my favorite guys

Liam got to swim around in the ocean without much help, and now truly has no fear of the ocean . . .

Then Casey took me out for dinner and Nana watched Liam for us . . .

Maybe 30 won't be so bad . . . .

Believe in the Sun. . . even when it's not Shining

the sun FINALLY came out again. . . so of course we packed it up and hit the beach. . .

we played and soaked up the sun for about 5 hours and Liam spent almost all of that time in the ocean. . . . and before we left he had to check out the view from the guard house with Daddy . . .
He fell asleep before we even made it off Ocean Avenue - hopefully there will be many more sunny days this week.

End of School

Monday morning I didn't have to be in school til much later than usual, so Liam and I went to the gym . . . I took a spin class and he must find it very interesting. As soon as we got home he told me that he had to go downstairs and that I wasn't allowed to come - so after a minute or so he calls me down to see this:

. . . and he tells me "I do spinning, too . . . see" - he pushed a step stool up to Casey's spin bike that is kept in the storage area of the basement :)

Then Tuesday was his last day of school for the summer. He graduated from the "Explorer" room and had a great year with his teachers and friends. . . I had to take a last day of school photo
. . . such a tough guy

Story Book Land Date

Last week I took my last personal day of the school year and brought Liam down to StoryBook Land in Mays Landing. . . .

We had a great time - just the two of us, and we went on almost every ride. Liam even wanted to go on the dragon roller coaster that he wasn't a fan of back in December. This time we were the only people on the ride and he picked to sit in the very first seat!

He also went on the flying elephants by himself twice!

We spent the whole day there and had great conversations - he's a pretty laid back dude and I enjoy his company :)

My mom used to always take us to Story Book Land when we were young and although many of the rides are new and parts of it have been updated, the Little Schoolhouse is still the same as when I was young - Liam and I took turns playing student and teacher . . . Since it was about 101 degrees this day Liam found something fun to cool us off. He was very focused at squirting down the bad guys . . .

We had fun and it was nice have each other's undivided attention, but the trouble with no one else joining us was that I couldn't get a photo of me and my cute date. At the end of the day we went on the carousel again and since we were the only ones I asked the nice 70 year old guy who was running the ride to take our photo . . .

Can't wait for summer!