Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Cape Cod - Part 1

It's no secret that my favorite place to be over the summer is Cape Cod... I might not have been it's biggest fan through the winters or even living there for a short period, but it's by far my favorite place to vacation!! It's always such a rush of emotions. I love the small town feel, the smell of the ocean near by, the pond... oh the pond, the candy store, the lighthouse, the seals, the fish pier, main street, Larry's P.X., School House Ice Cream, family cookouts, the ice cream truck, gorgoues views everywhere while driving, and so so much more! Going back now always bring me back to the summer I met Derrik as well. So many emotions about how much fun we had that summer, how far we have come from that crazy summer, how it's still surreal to me that we ever made it work in the first place being from different states, and how lucky I am to bring our two little boys back to that town now :)

I'll be excited when I get back to the days of simple blog posts, but for now it seems life keeps coming with BIG events like moving, introducing the boys to family for the first time, and vacation. These events are so daunting when it comes to blogging. I mean it took me over an hour last night just to sort through my pictures and get them all facing the right direction.... well over 1,000 pictures. I'll do my best to break it down with the best pictures from our trip.

On the Saturday before the 4th of July my mom, grandma, and Auntie Hailey were driving right past our exit on their way from Florida to Cape Cod. The boys, Auntie Ally, and I hoped right on the highway to meet them and made our trek 8 hours to the east for vacation on Cape Cod. We were blessed with a great trip, little traffic, and an amazing aunt and uncle who were gracious enough to welcome us into their house for ten days!! Not too many people will open their house to my wild 14 month old and almost 4 year old. They have a refinished basement which had three comfy beds waiting for us and a huge closet for Landon's pack 'n play to reside in. Due to the lack of windows in the basement my boys slept a good 12-14 hours each night (time to invest in black out shades?).... it was amazing!!

Anyhow.... on to the oodles of pictures...  

First things first... after everyone was ready to go on our first morning we HAD to head to Gigi's house. She was chomping at the bit to meet her great great grandson, who bears her last name as his middle name, for the very first time! It would be a lie to say all of us weren't anxious as well :) Here we are all loaded into my mom's car to head out and say our hello's
Gigi meeting Landonf or the very first time... He loved her :)

Ally and I are quite partial to this special lady as well :)
I think we have both had our days of exchanging leters with her as pen pals.
She is truly SUCH a blessing to our family!
A group shot
One of our next stops was to visit my Aunt Karen and Uncle Scott's cozy little cottage they rented for the week. It just happened to be right next to the lighthouse and across the street from the beach! It was a change of pace to see them so soon since their visit to Hershey. It's going to be nice having them so close by :)
Brotherly love... Maybe?
Although the exact details of our whole trip are fuzzy, and i'm fairly certain I don't have any pictures of our time there, I think we made a trip to Larry's P.X. for lunch our first day. Larry's is a local restaurant that lots of friends and family work at. It's a great place to just go and have good conversation with loved ones. We enjoyed many lunches there over our week on The Cape.

After our hellos we were all extremely ready for some time at "the pond'... The pond is actually called Long Pond to people from their because there are actually lots of ponds, but to our family it's The Pond... the one and only. Nothing else really compares. My sisters have played their since they were little girls and hopefully my boys will always have fond memories of playing there as well. The beach isn't big, but just big enough to be a giant play pen to babies, the pond has a great shallow swimming area, trees for catching frogs and fish along the sides (no frogs this year...super bummed!!), a huge area for those who want to go kayaking and fishing, and the teenage girls all love to float with their floats far enough out that their mom's can't butt in on their conversation, and of course the beloved ice cream truck shows up at the perfect time each and every day :) Just an all around great time. We'd spend every day there if we could... and almost did on vacation! 

Mr. Landon's first time at the pond... he had many days spent here over vacation, and loved each and every one of them. He just stayed right at the shore line playing with toys and eating LOTS of food. He was perfectly content, and loved going in the water as well whenever the adults went in to cool off.

Uncle Scott was the first one out on his kayak

Ryder took his first ride out with Aunt Karen

Landon and Grammy decided to stay on shore for this round :)

Two of my favorite family members (Brad better actually be family one day!) :) These two are always a good time... I think they think i'm a good time as well. Little do they know the ony time i'm a "good time" is with them haha!

Figuring this whole pond thing out :)
Relaxing while Landon plays... that is the life!

Another ride on the kayak for Ryder with Auntie this time
Ryder using his big guns to give Auntie the final ride to shore

Nice view of the kayaks all back on shore
The frog hunting team...
We have caught so many frogs in the years past on this pond, and they didn't see a single one this year. I was so bummed because we had built it up to be such a big thing to Ryder.

My grandma and three of her five kids
Auntie, Uncle Scott, Gram, and my Momma
My Aunt Karen is the awesome adventurous aunt in the family. She tried out someones paddle board while at the pond. She also did a week (or longer?) trip through the rapids on the Grand Canyon last summer and is doing another one through another canyon this summer. Pretty cool huh?!
Ryder pulling Auntie Hailey around

Ahh... Day 1 down... just the whole rest of the trip to go. And I have gotten up probably twenty times for the kids just trying to write this one lol

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