Monday, day 4 of vacay

It's 3 o'clock-middle of naptime for half the Kirk kids (and Steve, too). This morning we slept until almost 8 o'clock!! That could be a new record for us since having kids!! I'm guessing the time spent running around on the beach until almost 8 last night tired everyone out. We'll be doing that again tonight for sure!

Since the house is quiet I thought I'd take a few minutes to write about our morning. We headed to Ocean City's boardwalk around 10:30 this morning. We knew that we had to make at least one trip to Wonderland's Pier (small kid-friendly amusement park) this week and decided to do that this morning since it was still pretty overcast. The rest of the week is supposed to be mostly clear and we intend to spend most of the days on the beach. We had pizza on the boardwalk and then headed over to the rides.

It's always interesting to see how much our family has "aged" when we do something that happens only once a year. Last year only Kaeli was ready for the "big kid" rides. This year Paige was about an inch too short, but fortunately none of the ride attendants cared. So, we had K and P riding all the big kid rides together and Ryan and AJ were able to ride the little kid rides together. As hard as it is sometimes to get through the day with these 4, it's times like this that make me so grateful. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect situation. The girls buddy up and do things together and then the boys still have each other.

Paige rode all the same rides as Kaeli except for the pirate ship. She just couldn't bring herself to get on it. She wanted me to ride with her, but I made that mistake last year. I just can't handle that ride-it does terrible things to my stomach. Kaeli loves it and has to sit right at the very end of the boat! It still amazes me that she is such a thrill-seeker considering that she is such a nervous-nelly. It's fun to watch, though!

At the end, we had just enough tickets left over to all get on the carousel--all except for Steve who was manning the cameras the whole time. I think he got some great pics overall and of us on the carousel. This may be the very last year we'll get Kaeli on the carousel. She's evidently getting too old to be seen on such a ride. As we were leaving we got another group picture of all 4 of them sitting on the bench with the ocean behind them.

The girls brought their own money and were allowed to spend some of it at the boardwalk. We are now the proud owners of 2 hermit crabs named "beachking" (Kaeli's) and "sharkie" (Paige's). We did a little research about hermit crabs when we got home and realize we have to go buy more stuff. The little cage they bought at the store isn't acceptable for a long-term habitat. But, the really neat thing is that these little critters can eat just about anything. The girls are just loving that! They're having popcorn for a snack and have shared a couple of pieces with their hermit crabs. They are just so excited. For the past couple of summers they've been asking for one and we always said no.

Well, AJ is now awake from his nap and we are just waiting for the other two boys (Steve and Ryan). When they wake up we'll head over to the beach for a couple of hours before dinner.