Storybook Land

Lots of families make special memories at Disney World. I love that for them. For us, our happy place is Storybook Land.

The first time we came, Kip was almost two years old. He is now almost seven. That's five years of collected memories at this special place. On our way home from Cape May we stopped at Storybook Land to ease the transition back to routine from vacation. It was only a 45 minute drive and it broke-up our drive home the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, it was HOT. Like, really hot. Storybook Land is filled with huge shady trees and there was a breeze but it was still quite intolerable. The plus side of this was it was NOT crowded at all. We never waited in line for more than a minute and hit all our favorite rides.

Kip decided to try the roller coaster again. It was too scary for him last year but this year he loved it and rode twice. It goes SO fast considering it's a kids ride. Dan was a trooper and rode it both times. It's a rough ride for our elder bodies.

Several of the rides we were the only ones on at the time.

This was Ivy's first time on Beanstalk Bounce. She loved it.

We ended up leaving a little sooner than we planned but it was just too hot. The kids fell asleep right away in the car and we lucked out with traffic and had a smooth ride home. We got back to the house by 4 pm and were unpacked and back to routine by 5 pm. 

It was a great weekend and a perfect kick-off to summer. We have a fairly open summer with only a trip to visit family booked for mid-August. The rest of the summer will be sunshine, pool, playgrounds, splash pads, and local adventures.

I hope your summer is off to a good start too, whether you're already one month in or just starting today.

Vacation Vibes

It's Kip's last 1/2 day left of school!! Finally! Are we the last ones out for summer? It feels like it.

Anyways, we hit the beach this weekend for our mini family vacation.

This time last year we went to Cape May/Villas with Mandy, Dad (Poppa), Aunt Jess, and Uncle Greg. We rented a house and enjoyed the early summer on the shore. This year Dan planned a shorter trip for our little troop of five to kick-off the summer and show the kids and Mandy a little bit more of Cape May. We all took Friday off and drove down in the morning. We didn't hit any traffic the kids were car troopers (for the most part). 

We arrived in time for brunch at Uncle Bill's.

Then we immediately headed to the arcade. The kids LOVED it and Mandy and I scored 500 tickets at a claw machine. 

After the arcade we walked around town and looked in the cute shops. I sold our Uppababy stroller on Facebook Marketplace for $100 so we gave the kids each $50 to spend on souvenirs. $50 would have been like a million dollars to me as a kid but nowadays it doesn't go far at overpriced toy stores. Anyways, they had fun. We grabbed some ice cream and then checked-in at our hotel so we could head to the beach.

We were in a heatwave this weekend so the sand was HOT but the hotel provided beach chairs and umbrellas. The kids, of course, loved the sand. The waves were pretty rough but they had a blast kicking around at the edge.

After a couple of hours we headed to the room and cleaned-up. There was face paint in the hotel lobby so they kids got their first truly professional face paint experience. 

And then we went to dinner with a dragon and unicorn. Fish sandwiches on the waterfront!

We spent the rest of the evening playing at a fun playground. 

On Saturday we got delicious bagel sandwiches for breakfast and then hit-up another arcade. 

Then we headed to the beach in Villas which is on the bay side. This is where we went last year and the kids really loved it. There were tons of pebbles and shells and little tide pools to play in and the waves were very calm and a much more comfortable and a safer place to "go wild" playing by the water. We made a cool sand creation and Dad dug a trench out to the water. The only downside to this beach was we didn't have beach chairs or an umbrella so after awhile we were getting too toasty and headed back to the hotel to clean-up. 

The kids wanted to go shopping again so we went in and out of the cute stores, stopped for coffee, enjoyed the vibe of the cute town.

Then we headed back to the hotel for their kid activity of the day which was sand art. 

We went to dinner at the same place as the night before because it's on the water, fast service, and we knew there was something for everyone. Dan and I have been to Cape May several times and often ended up at overpriced or sub-par restaurants. Any time we take the whole crew out to eat there is a lot of hemming and hawing about where to go and then everyone gets hangry and grumpy. So I made the executive decision we'd go to what we knew worked. The Lobster House is very family friendly and Kip loved the fish and Ivy enjoyed her chicken fingers. I loved the crab cake sandwich and Mandy and Dan got the fish sandwiches.

We took the kids to Rita's for dessert and then Mandy put the kids to bed and gave Dan and I some time to walk the beach around sunset. It was beautiful and brought back happy memories of our homey-moon nearly 10 years ago. 

On Sunday, we packed-up the room, grabbed breakfast, and then headed to Storybook Land! I'll write a separate post about that adventure. 

It was a fairly short trip to the shore but we all enjoyed it very much and look forward to going back again soon.