Life's a beach

Last week Jason was out of town, so Liza and I high-tailed it to the East Coast to visit family.  One of the highlights was a trip to Ocean City, Maryland, with my in-laws and two of Liza's cousins.  We hit one of the amusement ride places on the boardwalk, which Liza remembered from her visit last year.

Unfortunately, Liza and Chloe were too tall to ride most of the attractions that were open when we first arrived, so we had some time to kill on the (hot, sweaty) boardwalk before the "big kid" rides opened.

After obligatory stops at the baby rollercoaster, the girls decided to go on the "Freak Out," which is sort of a spinning pendulum thingee.  Liza has been dying to go on a similar ride at Cedar Point, but she's not tall enough, so she was thrilled to be big enough for this version.

Not sure if she'd be so thrilled once the ride was in progress ...

Looks like she survived with her spirit intact.

So intact, in fact, that the girls went on it four more times in a row.

Another favorite was the funhouse, which the girls ran through at top speed while the grownups sat in the shade.

I bought a few tickets so I could go on some of the better rides, but got suckered into using some of them to go through my first mirror maze.  Um, yay?

Liza liked the looping, corkscrewing, then-let's-do-it-again-backwards coaster so much that she rode it a second time (without me, in the front seat).  Can you tell she's just barely tall enough for the ride?

Later in the afternoon we stopped for pizza and sodas with curly straws, which were roundly enjoyed by all.

We made it back to my mother-in-law's house before dark, which was excellent for the photographer in the family.  The mosquitoes even gave me a few minutes' peace before they attacked with a vengeance ...

Meanwhile, the cousins and their matching pajamas found the supply of fancy hats and started making up an elaborate story involving maids and artists and a cartoon monkey.

The next day we headed for the beach, stopping along with every other tourist in the state to see the wild ponies on Chincoteague Island.

Despite really high surf and rip tide warnings (stupid hurricane), the girls managed to get in some "surfing."

Best part of the day?  Taking over the deluxe giant hole that some boys had dug in the beach earlier in the day.  It was the size of a hot tub, complete with seats built into the walls.

All in all, a good time was had by all, and we can't wait to do it again.  Maybe next time we can get the cousins to visit us at our beach and go to our amusement park ...

Guess where we went last week

We went to the crystal clear, gently lapping waters of ... Lake Erie.

Laugh all you want, beach snobs.  It was warm, perfect for wading and paddling about, you could see what you were stepping on, and there was hardly any trash on the beach that day.  Take that, Jamaica, with your vast quantities of plastic spoons washing up on shore every day.

 You know, if you go when it's 97F outside, you pretty much have the place to yourself.

Like the chess masters, Liza takes her castling very seriously. 

Home base, or, as I call it, "The only reason I was willing to set foot on a beach when it's that hot outside."  Shade of a giant tree 30 feet from the shoreline? Brilliant idea, nature!

Let the trail of sand and rocks begin ... here!

It was "beach day" at preschool today, and since the girls were in their beachy attire anyway, we decided to surprise them with a trip to the real beach.  It went over well, judging by the number of cheese-its consumed and the volume of sand that came home in the car with us.

Beach day

On Thursday Liza and I went with some friends to Huntington Beach, which is on Lake Erie. It was very weird to be there on a day when it was warm and sunny and filled with people, given the times of year we normally visit.

The water was unseasonably warm, and Liza and her friends had a good time jumping in the waves. I went in with Liza, and she held onto my hands and jumped every time a big wave came in ... which meant that I did the equivalent of about 400 bicep curls with a 40-pound kid. She also was willing to try swimming back into shore (so she didn't get a face full of waves), as long as I kept an arm around her waist to help support her in the water. She's got all the swimming stuff down except the part where your butt stays up near the top of the water. If you could swim while positioned vertically in the water, she'd be golden.

Once the surf got too rough and the lifeguards suspended swimming (my biceps: "thank god for this break"), the girls were still allowed to play at the very edge of the water ... while Mrs. Happy and I sat on a blanket in the shade of the cliff at the back of the beach. It's good to have a moderately responsible teenager around for these beach trips!