Water Babies

 I wasn't brought up going to the coast of the proper Atlantic for vacation. In my childhood, the Gulf of Mexico (which is the kinder gentler Atlantic Ocean) was where you vacationed. I think I've always had a serious bias toward the white sands and crystal blue waters of the gulf. Mentally, I felt like the Atlantic was rough (not as rough as the Pacific OF COURSE as they say) but just not a beach or ocean I'd CHOOSE. I have now vacationed on the Atlantic three times in my 45 years and my bias is definitely shifting. At least it's neutralizing. Maybe it was just watching the insane fun four children can have on ANY beach that has melted my heart.

 We learned that the tide there goes out incredibly far, a ridiculous drop in tide of 9-12 feet. It didn't matter though. We just kept walking out to it, chasing the surf, which wasn't rough at all thanks to the tide, and swimming in the water.

 The girl had been afraid of "sea crabs" as she called them. She told me that they would pinch her toes, and that her toes had bones in them. She asked me to please protect her from sea crabs, which I agreed to do. Luckily there was no toe pinching. We did torture some clams by digging them up and then lobbing them back into the ocean. Sorry clams, EVOLVE.

 We missed lunch because we were at the beach too long, so we decided why not check out this little bakery called SMALLCAKES.  We ate giant cupcakes and called that lunch.

 That's valid vacation lunch I'm pretty sure.

 After dinner was done, we decided to make one more vacation based decision and head out to a local ice cream shop called Moo Cow. I had salted caramel, the kids had various chocolate or vanilla and the husband had the WINNER which was a peach. His was absolute best. My son ordered a blue drink also, which made me love him because I LOVE BLUE DRINKS. I have a whole pinterest board dedicated to blue drinks, if that tells you how much I love them.

One of my favorite treats from this place were the Boylan's sodas we tried. The birch beer was a really delicious take on root beer, and the Shirley Temple was was more crisp than expected. The Shirley Temple's of my childhood were syrupy sweet. Thinking of this makes me want to make them for my kids.

We collapsed in bed and slept like the dead. Vacation exhaustion is awesome.

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