Last Day of Fun!

This first picture was taken on some random day at the house at the beach. Lincoln put this bucket on his foot on his own and walked around for awhile like it was nothing. He is a nut!
The last day of vacation we packed up our stuff and headed to Philadelphia to see the sights before flying home that evening.

The only group picture taken the entire trip.

In Philadelphia, we visited the Liberty Bell and Liberty Hall. It wasn't too crowded and it was neat to see. I would have liked to see and read more but with 3 kids under 8 stopping and reading wasn't going to happen.

Cousins at the Liberty Bell (can you tell who didn't want to hold hands for the picture?!)

In front of Liberty Hall

After a (disappointing) philly cheesesteaks lunch we headed to see the Rocky statue and steps. This was Shane wanted to see most of all in Philly.

Shane and Eli running up the steps. This building is an art museum and Shane said at the top it was a gorgeous building.

After the Rocky steps, we headed to the airport to make our trip home. IT WAS A NIGHTMARE! It started raining about lunch time and did not stop! I heard the city got about 4 inches that afternoon. It was terrible. Our flight was supposed to leave at 5:35 to connect in St. Louis. The flight kept getting pushed back later and later and we were nervous about making any connecting flights out of St. Louis. Flights were getting cancelled all over the place and we were nervous we were not going to get out of that airport. We were pretty sure we were going to be staying the night in a hotel room somewhere with a baby and probably no luggage. I was not happy! Our flight time was finally set at 8:50 and we were determined to at least get out of Philly. Lincoln was pretty good with all the waiting. We found a not busy spot and let him push his own stroller. My sister called and said to look for a children's play area in the airport and that helped kill some time. But the last 30 minutes were awful! He was not happy with anything he did and nothing we could do was making it better. I didn't care if he screamed and cried because I know that is how everyone was feeling. A nice stranger let Lincoln look at his ipad and that entertained him long enough to board. He slept half of the flight to St. Louis. We landed in St. Louis around 11 and were told that there would be a flight to Dallas about 11:30 so we stuck it out and waited to fly home. We FINALLY made it to Dallas about 1 am! It was crazy and we were happy to have the weekend at home to relax and recover.

The Boardwalk

Ocean City is known for their family friendly boardwalk. There are no bars (because it is a dry city) so it has lots of families and teenagers. The boardwalk has a carnival type amusement park, putt-putt places, go carts, many shops and some tasty treats. Live music some nights made for a pleasant walk after dinner. We went to the boardwalk most nights and almost always ended in ice cream!

My little family
(I have no idea why Lincoln decided that this new smile was the one he wanted to show off on vacation. But almost all of his smiling pictures show this goofy, toothless grin. It cracks me up!)
One evening we bought 75 tickets and rode many rides. This was the ferris wheel that Shane, myself and my parents rode. Jordan and Brad were on kid-duty.

Cute picture of just us two

Lincoln got in on the rides. He is always a little unsure of a carousel but is ok once it gets going but he won't look at the camera as it spins around.

The boat ride was a little more enjoyable.

His favorite ride was the cars. He LOVED it!

Such a fun, family night!

Fourth of July

Christmas and 4th of July are my favorite holidays. Fireworks, yummy grilled food, family, matchy-matchy clothes, the color red, and so much more make it a great holiday.

Jordan made the cousins coordinating outfits to wear on the 4th. They were so stinkin' cute! But the picture battle continued! We bribed them with promises of ring pops and danced for Lincoln and got a handful of decent pictures from hundreds.
C-U-T-E! Eli loved pushing Lincoln's stroller and walking hand in hand with him. Lincoln thinks his older cousins hung the moon so it works out!

Another attempt on the beach...they really are cute, even if they are a little tooty!

Probably the best picture of the three and it's their backsides. :)

Lincoln was having some serious meltdowns on the boardwalk this night. This picture started out with him pitching himself on the ground then realizing there was stuff under the boards. So we let him stay a bit because he was still and quiet. Hey, we were on vacation so anything goes, right?!

After pictures, we bought the kiddos ice cream. It was tasty and so patriotic with sprinkles! I might have had this ice cream almost every night.

Our family picture on the 4th.

***Funny story: There were HUNDREDS of sesagulls on the beach and boardwalk. They would get so close and I heard they would snatch food out of your hand. My sister had to fight them off one afternoon at the beach because someone dropped a Goldfsh on the beach by her one day. They were scary. But on the 4th, Eli told me that it would be funny if a seagull pooped in my hair. And guess what happened SECONDS after this picture was taken?! Yep I was pooped on! I was not a fan of those dumb birds.

Peace, Love, Sandy Feet

Our family stayed in a house a few blocks from the ocean. If you know Lincoln well, then you know he is worker. This did not change when he was at the beach, he worked everyday at the beach.

Lincoln would carry around his shovel and wagon and be very serious the entire time. He didn't want to get the water at the beginning of the week. He was content with his shovel as long as no one bothered him.

Lincoln's new goofy grin....this could be my favorite picture of the entire trip. Love this boy!

Working with Phoebe

We were quite the sight when we would head to the beach.

6 adults, 3 kids, a wagon of sand toys, 4 chairs, a little cooler, an umbrella, bags with towels and snacks, 2 boards for wave surfing, and good attitudes!

After about 2 days, Lincoln was feeling adventurous and would head into the water with someone. By the last day we had to keep a watchful eye on him or he would be gone into the water.

Ocean City beaches are different than the ones we are used to. The temperature is not as hot so it was nice to sit in a chair and not be drenched with sweat in a few minutes. But the cooler temps meant colder water. Brrrrr! It was cold! Once you got in the water and wrestled with the waves, your body got numb and it was fine but it was pretty chilly.

I was happy to see Lincoln so excited about the beach. We will be going again.

Ocean City, NJ

We had another first for Lincoln this summer...a family vacation. All of his trips have involved going to visit family so Shane and I decided it would be fun to take a real family vacation this summer. We joined my sister and her family and my parents in Ocean City, NJ for a week.

We flew out on a Saturday morning and we had the same flight with my sister and her family. It was great to have extra set of hands to help wrangle Lincoln on the two flights to get there.

Lincoln was excited to sit and watch the planes. After one would go by, he would ask for more and couldn't figure out why we couldn't make more appear.
My sister is the master planned in our family and she plans fun details to make the trip more enjoyable. She bought all three kids 4 presents to receive on the flights to make it a little more interesting.

Fun, huh?!! Each present was individually wrapped.

Lincoln got finger puppets, a crayola pad with magic markers, gummy bears, and these stack together people. Guess which gift was the biggest hit? The gummy bears! Seriously, Lincoln is an addict when it comes to gummy bears. He was cramming them in his mouth so we had to hide them or his teeth might have actually fallen out.

I have to say I was surprised at how well Lincoln did on the flights. It was about 4 hours all together and he held it together until about the last 20 minutes.

We landed in Philadelphia and found dinner at a famous philly cheesesteak place, Geno's. They were TASTY! The experience wasn't so great because it was hot and the kids were tired and cranky but the cheesesteaks were yumm-o!

Once in Ocean City, we hit the beach. I wasn't sure how Lincoln would do since he doesn't like his hands and feet to be dirty but he loved it.

Sandy toes....so sweet!

Checking out the ocean

We tried to get a few cousins pictures but with three kids, it is so stinkin' hard. This was the best I got!

I am going to break our vacation up into about 5 posts because we had that much fun! :)