Winter Fun at the Beach

Once I figured out that Chris was going to a hockey game with his Dad and brothers for this past weekend and realized that it was a long weekend I decided the I wanted to DO something so I took the boys to Ocean City, New Jersey. We left on Saturday after Dima was done with his skating lessons, the kids ate lunch on the way there so by the time we got there we could check in to the hotel and get moving and explore the place. The Flanders Hotel http://www.theflandershotel.com/
was really, really nice. I got a one bedroom suite with a kitchen so I could take stuff and make our own meals which worked out well so that I didn't have to plan around getting hungry kids out to a restaurant especially since it's off season I didn't even know how many places would actually be open. Our passes through the lobby -with lots of antiques- were the worst for me with trying to keep both boys from touching anything. On the way down I rehearsed ahead of time what would probably happen when I was checking in and they did sit nicely for a moment until they decided to goof around on the circular sofa and Dima then got wound up and had trouble calming himself as he often does in exciting situations like that... and that was only the beginning of the excitement.

Once we checked out the hotel room we got bundled up - it was around 25-30 degrees and super windy the whole time we were there- and walked down to the beach and boardwalk. The beach was great cause the kids could run, run, run to burn up energy and it was sheltered from the wind and while it was really windy when there were no buildings to shelter us from the wind the boardwalk was fun cause the kids could look at the stuff in the windows, including Dima's favorite Hot Air Balloon figurines and lots of car things for Josh to look at. It was nice to have that time to get out an walk, a very nice change from out usual walks around the neighborhood. Saturday afternoon we found an arcade and spent some time playing skeeball and Josh "drove" one of the cars on a video game, like a maniac I might add, steering allover the sidewalks and bashing into things while I pushed the gas pedal for him. There was an amusement area that we could see from our suite that we could walk through and just the excitement of seeing the rides had the two of them going "Look at THAT!!" - okay for Josh it sounds more like "Wook..." but seeing the stuff through their eyes is interesting and fun. Josh saw the train tracks and followed them to a garage and was even thrilled that the train was inside. He also had a great time digging in the sand while Dima and found seashells. At first Josh wanted to keep every shard of a shell that he found but then he lost interest and wanted to dig, dig dig. They both liked watching how the sand would blow around while we were walking and looking between the cracks of the boardwalk for frost that hadn't melted. While we walked along it was like Josh was providing our soundtrack cause he usually sings whatever song pops into his mind and doesn't have a problem with other people hearing him sing at the top of his lungs. There were pirate ship replicas over the boardwalk so then he'd sing about the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, from Veggie Tales and other times he asked me to remind him of different lyrics including " Walking around the Christmas Tree'" his version of Rockin around the Christmas Tree from Home Alone.

Sunday morning we were walking pretty early when Josh saw that the arcade was closed and literally threw himself on the ground crying - I'm picturing an ad for that arcade in there somewhere... but he poor kid really wanted to go back in to play, then he was clamped onto my legs for a while and got upset that he was cold and trying to explain that if we'd get moving we'd warm up was not easy. We did end up back in the room and most of our time there was spent with one of Josh's favorite things at the moment, his superheroes puzzle or there were some toys there, an Noah's ark and Mr. Potato head and a little car that kept Dima busy cause he'd just spin around in circles on his knees to watch the little beads inside it move.

The place also had videos and I let them watch Home Alone and they thought it was the funniest thing ever. I was a little hesitant to let them see it again - since they start replaying dialogue from movies after they've seen them a few times and I really didn't want them to start saying some of the stuff from that movie. During the movie I had a little discussion about how some things aren't nice to say and either they actually listened to me or what they heard didn't have that much of an impact.

Getting the kids to sleep was a bit of a juggling act, Saturday I decided to let Dima stay up while Josh went in to the king bed - another thing that they thought was really cool - since he yaks and sings to himself while he's falling asleep. Dima is good about going to bed and lying quietly till he's asleep so that way worked best. On Sunday night I experimented with letting Josh stay up and that was a mistake cause he woke Dima up with his chatter when he hit the bed then the two of them were goofing around and after it became obvious that they weren't going to get much sleeping done I went in to lay between them so they'd quiet down. There was a pull out sofa bed - another thing that they thought was amazing. I spent the first night there but since I read about the resident ghost on the Flanders website I left the bathroom light - which I probably would have anyway - and a small kitchen light and had to look around the room anytime I woke up during the night. I felt a little better with in the same room as the kids and was hoping that Josh wouldn't tell me about seeing "angels" in his bed as he has on occasion in the past. Talk about an un-relaxing way for me to spend my night!!

We had a really nice time waking up together on Monday morning and then getting out to walk the beach one last time. I asked for and got extended check out so we could have half a day down there and we left for home after lunch. Even thought we didn't stray much from our normal routine while we were gone, it was nice to have a change of scenery. Josh must have been exhausted cause he slept most of the way home and again once we settled in for a nap here. I for one am already looking forward to nap time this afternoon. It is always nice to get back to your own (ghost-free) bed once you've been away.

As I'm writing this Dima's at school and Josh is going through his toys as if he missed them. At times he wants me to read for him or play games with him like his matching game and other times he wants to play all "my by" self he's good at doing his own thing and he's very focused on what he's doing and it's kind of nice for him to not have to share his stuff or my attention.