Jack & Kate: The OC

So for the month of July Mike is on sabbatical from work! It's an amazing benefit provided by his company where employees receive a paid month off every 7 years of service. They are "forced" to take the month off and just unwind - travel - do something that they normally would not be able to do. It helps them to de-stress and also helps their department to learn to live without them when needed as it is never good to become too dependent on one person. So since I am currently without a j-o-b we have the whole month off together as a family which will be AWESOME. Well either it will be AWESOME or we'll end up spending so much time together that we'll end up wanting to strangle each other. But we're totally hoping for AWESOME. Last week we kicked off his sabbatical with a little mini-vacay to Ocean City, MD. We went Monday - Thursday which worked well as we were able to completly avoid typical beach traffic. We stayed at a little hotel right on the boardwalk so were were just steps from everything you could possibly want and/or need - the beach, rides, games, ice cream, FUNNEL CAKE - all within walking distance. Perfect, no?

Jack insisted on packing himself for the trip. He worked on it for two days then finally pronounced himself ready. Here is what I found upon suitcase investigation.

Me: Great job, but you forgot clothes!
Jack: What? No I didn't. I packed one pair of underwear and one pair of soft pants - I'm good.

The traffic-free car ride was made all the more enjoyable with a little help from modern technology. Kate spend her time watching movies on the dvd player in the car.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone look cuter in headphones.

And Jack whiled away the hours watching movies on my Kindle.

We put Kate on the beach the first night there. As you can tell by the look on her face, she was not a fan.

The first full day on the beach she spent the ENTIRE time on the beach blanket. She'd play with the beach toys but wouldn't move more then approximately 2 feet in any direction. The second day we bought her some beach/water shoes and she totally warmed up to the place.

They only look like they are playing nicely. In reality they were at odds because Jack was trying to dig a big hole and Kate was trying to fill the hole back up. Jack got frustrated quickly and left Kate all alone. Well, all alone except for the lady right behind her who was smoking a cigarette approximately three feet away from my baby. Lovely!!!

Mike bought Jack a super cool new boogie board and the kid surfed for hours like it was his job. You can't really tell by the pics but the waves were actually pretty big. Jack was totally fearless tho - he'd get pulled under, tossed around and would just keep going back for more.

Both kids loved the boardwalk. Here is Jack playing skee ball. Check out that form! You can tell he has South Jersey in his blood.

And Kate was crazy about the bowling game.

This pic is blurry but I just love it so much - if you look carefully at her feet you will see that they are both off the ground as she is literally jumping for joy after knocking down some pins. She was SO happy!

She then, of course, immediately turned to her brother for a congratulatory hug.

Another thing they loved about the boardwalk? The rides!

Kate braved the death defying fire engine ride all on her own.

And Jack rode his very first "professional roller coaster" (as he called it) EVER! Here is what it looked like.

Seriously!!!

Here are Jack and Mike getting ready to go.

Up up and away!

I do believe that is Mike's hand waving to us from the very back of the coaster.

And upside down!

After the ride ....

Me: Jack! That was awesome! Did you have fun?
Jack: Yes. And also, I feel like I'm going to vomit.

Kate preferred the slow roll of the merry-go-round.

She wasn't nearly as scared as she looks. Mike just happened to snap this one right after they sounded the big buzzer indicating the start of the ride. She is not a fan of big buzzers.

Merry-go-round self portrait from the following night.