The rest of our vacation was spent in Ocean City, Maryland. Pat's parents bought a great beach condo in a really great community...pools, beach, interactive fountains and bar within walking distance.
Strangely enough, we had to drag the kids out of the house every day. At one point I recall yelling, "Why do I have to force you guys to have fun?" as I struggled to get them in bathing suits and cover them with sunscreen. Every time we asked Jack what he wanted to do, he said, "I think I just want to stay here and play." I don't know what the attachment to the condo was. It makes me wonder if I should just throw away all the toys except for a couple of boxes now that we're home. The few toys we had at the beach house seemed to entertain them for hours.
But when we did finally get out of the house and enjoy the outdoors, the kids had a great time. They preferred the beach to the pool this week. The beach is on the bay side and is very shallow...we're not even sure where the drop off is since we've never seen any adults in water above their waists. Jack and Casey brought their plastic boat and digger into the water and played and played and played. Casey really enjoyed jumping around and splashing in the water and yelling, "I'm swimming!" while she had her hands reaching the sand. Jack would put his life jacket on and swim around. He also enjoyed being picked up by his life jacket straps and then tossed in the water (by Pat, not me).
Casey's other love, besides the water, was her bike. She finally learned to petal and every time we went somewhere on Sunset Island, she rode her bike. She's not very good at driving in a straight line, but I think it will come. (Then again, my sister never did get the hang of looking behind her without driving her bike into a ditch.)
One day when Jack was probably a little bit overtired, Pat mentioned the possibility of going fishing. Jack latched onto this idea with all that he had...there was no room in his head for thoughts that didn't involve fishing and most of those thoughts were vocalized as well. He talked about fishing incessantly until we finally bought fishing rods. When I tried to talk to him about fishing and how it might take some time to catch a fish, he blew me off and insisted that he already knew how to fish and knew how it would go. Instead of a bedtime story, Pat read him the instructions on the back of the fishing rod that night.
Finally, while Casey napped one day, Pat took Jack fishing. The children's Spongebob and Barbie fishing rods were a bust and ended up back at the store but somehow they caught a catfish...or a flounder. Whatever Jack wants to call it. And I think Jack was happy. Happy enough that he wanted to go again on a rainy day.
We had a such a relaxing and enjoyable time on our vacation that none of us wanted to come home. We did just about everything you associate with summer and the beach, and more...ice cream (multiple nights), ferris wheels, swimming in the pool, swimming at the beach, building sand castles, watching weigh-ins for the tuna tournament, eating yummy food, biking on the boardwalk, biking around Sunset Island, fishing, fishing in the rain, and more.
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