Beach Please, Hold the Ocean

The Molloy clan spent the past week in Bethany Beach, Delaware with almost all of Marty's family - his parents, brother Kevin, nephew Nathan, sister-in-law Rachel, and even his sister Amy and her friend Laura flew in from California for the family vacation (we missed you Tom, Abby and Scott!). We stayed in a gorgeous, huge house with all sorts of entertainment (including a pool table, ping pong table, community pool, fitness center and playground) located about a mile from the beach. Marty's parents also brought along their Wii, which provided hours of entertainment for the whole family - and even Ellie wanted in on the Wii fun!

Amy has not seen Ellie in nearly two years, so obviously Ellie was much different than the drooling 5 week old that Amy last visited! Ellie has identified Aunt Amy in pictures for a long time now and was very excited about her being on the vacation. Likewise, Amy was thrilled to be able to finally spend some quality time with her niece. Ellie has had this bizarre stranger anxiety for a while now, so we were a little worried that she would take a while to warm up to Amy, but it turned out that it was definitely NOT a problem. Ellie warmed up to Amy within an hour (maybe less) - then the two of them were nearly inseparable for the rest of the vacation! In fact, every time that we went anywhere without Amy, Ellie literally cried the whole time "I want Amy!" and on the last few days, Ellie was saying "I love you Amy!" completely unsolicited. We were so happy that the two of them had a chance to really bond and get to know each other, and now we are going to work on convincing Amy that she needs to move back to the east coast! I think that Ellie will be first in line.




It turned out to be a pretty HOT week, with temperatures in the mid-90s and the humidity making it feel in the hundreds almost every day. We made it out the the beach really early a few mornings - trying to get there before it was too sweltering to bear and the sand too hot to walk on. Again this year, Ellie was terrified of the ocean ("I don't like it! It's too loud!") but enjoyed playing in the sand. Aunt Amy also brought her endless bucks of ocean water to play with in the sand, so she did get a taste of the ocean without having to actually go to the scary shoreline.


While she was scared of the ocean water, she really took to the pool this year. The complex had a baby pool (9 to 18 inches deep) and a regular pool ( 3ft to 5 ft) and it took her a little bit to get comfortable with it, but by the end of the first day, she was running back and forth between the two pools playing and having a blast. In the baby pool, she loved walking in the water, sitting with Mommy and throwing her sand toys in and then retrieving them. In the big pool, she loved walking on the stairs (by herself - "I don't need help!") playing motorboat with Mommy and Daddy, swimming on her tummy while kicking her legs and riding on Mommy's back.

Another exciting highlight of the trip were the rides. We went down to Trimpers Rides (one of my favorite childhood places!) at the end of the boardwalk in Ocean City one night and it turned out to be such a hit that we returned two more times during the week. She went on the Merry-go-Round, airplanes, dog ride, and drove a bus, but her favorite was the teacups ride. She probably went on the teacups 5 times - once by herself. She had a blast and it was so much fun to watch her enjoying all the rides I loved as a kid.

We had a wonderful and relaxing vacation and Marty and I both feel spoiled from spending so much time with Ellie for the past 10 days. We are going to miss her so much when we go back to work on Monday! Marty pointed out that it was the last vacation we'll take as a family of three - its' so crazy to think that next summer we'll be a family of four with a 3 year old and a 9 month old! That will certainly be an adventure.