Cape Cod Day 4: Sandy Neck Beach

By Tuesday, the weather on the Cape was finally beach-worthy. So we packed up our family trucksters (all three of them) and headed to Sandy Neck Beach. As advertised, Sandy Neck Beach was sandy. So the kids immediately set out to build a sandcastle. After 45 minutes, their masterpiece was complete -- including a dinosaur-filled moat, yellow and pink snakes, and Fisher-Price Little People. 

Morgan and Cooper spent a lot of time in the water. As the tide rolled in, Morgan loved bobbing up and down in the waves. She squealed (and I quote), "I'm going up and down so much I'm going to shoot my cookies."



After lunch, Cate and Gwen decided (on their own) to take a break from the sun and sand. Apparently, the felt like they needed a little "girl" time to chill out in the tent and blow bubbles.

Sandy Neck Beach is obviously sandy. But, as Morgan and Cooper discovered, it's also rocky. So while the little kids played, the two big kids explored up and down the beach, looking for colorful rocks to bring home for their collections.

After a long, hot day at the beach, we cooled off with ice cream at Smitty's in Barnstable.

Cape Cod Day 3: Natural History Museum

Forecasts on Monday called for cloudy skies. So rather than risking it at the beach, we headed to the Cape Cod Natural History Museum. The kids learned about some of the wild life, did some bird watching, and got up close and personal with a bee hive.

But the most amazing specimen we saw at the museum wasn't a turtle, fish or bird. It was a little boy who could have been Gwen's twin. After we entered the museum, we both caught him running around outside out of the corner of our eye and instinctively thought Gwen had escaped. But it was actually this kid, with the same curly blonde hair, same blue eyes, and same spunky demeanor.

When the two look-alikes final came face-to-face, even they were amazed at the resemblance. So were all of the parents, and even a few other people at the museum who didn't realize they weren't actually twins.

After the excitement (and confusion) of meeting her doppelganger, we all headed outside and walked  through the nature preserve. The half mile path took us through the woods, over the salt marshes and eventually to the water, where Morgan kicked off her shoes and slopped through the mud.

We headed home in time for the girls to take a nap. That afternoon, we hung out in the back yard of our vacation house, played games (water balloon fight!) and grilled-up some dinner.

Ariella brought a giant white canvas and enough paint for all five kids to make a mural of their vacation on Cape Cod. The kids took turns making lobsters and crabs out of the handprints and footprints.

  

After dinner, the kids took a relaxing swing in the hammock. Tomorrow, the forecasts called for sun, so we were headed to our first of three straight beach days.

Cape Cod Vacation Day 2: Millway Beach

From August 18-24, we enjoyed our second annual vacation on Cape Cod with the Bonsteels and Chiaverinis. This year, with the kids all 12 months bigger than they were last summer, we rented a bigger house in Barnstable, MA. After settling in on Saturday afternoon, we finally set out to explore the area on Sunday morning. The closest beach to our house was a small, private spot for the locals called Millway Beach.

When we arrived, the tide was out which meant that there was plenty of sloppy, wet sand for the kids to explore. Morgan, Gwen, Cooper, Cate and Lucas found plenty of snails, tiny crabs and even a few little fish.

 

While Gwen discovered horseshoe crab shells, Cate, Cooper and Morgan took to the high ground to get a better view of Barnstable Harbor.

Morgan and Cooper are best friend by day. But when night falls across Cape Cod, they don their disguises and assume their secret identities as the famous, bedtime crime-fighters: "The Pajama-vengers!"

Great Great Grand-Crib

When Ariella's parents moved from New Jersey to Utah, they gave us the pieces of Ariella's baby doll crib. We kept it in our basement(s) for 7 years just in case we ever had a little girl to play with it. Oh that's right -- we've got 2 of them. So Sunday afternoon, Andy and Gwen finally put together again.

The crib was built by hand in 1983 by Ariella's Great Grandfather, Fred Stock (her Mom's Mom's Dad). It's almost 3 feet long and over a foot deep. It's engraved with the name "Ariella" on the outside of the footboard. It has a bunny engraved on the inside of the headboard and a duck at the feet.

As legend has it, the crib was big enough for Aunt Lindsay to sleep in when she was an infant. But infants are tiny. So Gwen absolutely had to find out if it was big enough to hold an excited 2-year old.

Okay, so the crib is big enough to fit Gwen. She's still pretty small, though. But was it big enough to fit a big 4-year old like Morgan? Yep.

Alright, well, there's no way it could be big enough to hold BOTH girls at the same time, right? Especially if they're playing with baby dolls, right? Right?

Okay, okay... How about both girls, PLUS the baby dolls, PLUS Ariella? (Nah... that's crazy. You're right, Gwen.)

Whether they use the crib for their dolls or for themselves, the giant crib is a gift from their Great Great Grandfather that another generation of little girls are going to enjoy.