Beach Week 2012

We had all been looking forward to beach week this year.  Even Jason has accepted and learned to love the craziness that is the family beach week.  For those that don't know my entire family...my brothers, sister in laws, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins...numbering somewhere around 30 people, gather in Narragansett, RI every year for our family beach week.  Times have changed and we are a little more "luxurious" now...meaning we are a little more spread out.  The houses themselves are not luxurious but when I was a child we had all of those people in one house with 2 bedrooms.  That meant you have people sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor or on the couch (if you were lucky).  Now the families are split up between a few houses but we all get houses next to each other so the kids can run from house to house without worry.  Jason and I could get our own house but for me the memory of being jammed into one house with everyone was part of what made beach week special to me so instead of renting our own we join my parents in a three bedroom house with one of my brothers.  My parents get a bedroom, my brother Joe takes a room with his family and we take a room for our family. (My other brother rents a house across the yard from us).  The rooms are tiny and there is barely enough room to fit two twin blow up mattresses along side our bed in the room for the girls but we manage.  The goal is not to spend time in your room but to be out enjoying time with the entire family.

Beach week is filled with fun activities.  We go to the beach, of course!  I love Sand Hill Cove!!  It is the old person and little kid beach but I have always loved it.  There is not a wave to be seen and I can walk into the water while seeing the bottom the entire time.  Now that I'm a parent I love it even more because I do not have to worry about rip tides or my kids getting slammed by a wave.  The "waves" that our kids love to play in and ride their boogie boards on are laughable to call waves but while they are happy with them so am I.  Between all our rental houses is a pool for use by the renters so after the beach or on days when the weather wasn't perfect for the beach we would head to the pool for play time. Every year we take a day and head over to Adventure land.  Adventure land has mini gold, bumper boats, go karts, batting cages and a carousel.  Some years we play mini golf and some years we don't.  This year we skipped and hit the carousel instead since that was what the kids wanted.  The main reason for adventure land though are the go-karts!  My nephew, Johnathon, tries to beat me every year.  Last year I beat him because his car stalled out on the final lap but a win is a win!  This year I lucked out and got one of the faster cars as well as Ali is older this year and I'm not as worried about her being scared or jarring her neck on a bump so I could hold the gas down the entire time.  Johnathon, unfortunately, got a slow car and we beat him by a full lap.  Such is the luck of the draw on go-karts.  He wanted another race but I know when to call it quits and I only give him one opportunity to beat me a year!  This year Sofia was old enough to go solo in the bumper boats but Ali still wanted to stay with me which was fine.  We all had fun and ended up completely soaked. 

Time at the beach or on go karts or at the pool works up an appetite and time can't be spent down at Point Judith without heading to Iggy's for dough boys (fried dough).  We managed to go to Iggy's a couple times during the week and it was delicious! 

Jason, the girls and I took an afternoon and headed over to play golf with my Aunt Carlene.  I have always loved spending time with my Aunt Carlene and the girls love spending time with her too.  I love seeing them have the same fun that I had as a kid.  Some how my Aunt makes everyone feel special.  Anyway we played nine holes together and had a great time.  We tried to figure out a second day to play but the week just goes by so fast and there are so many things to do that we ended up only fitting in one round of golf.

 Our last stop at beach week was at the Fantastic Umbrella Factory.  It isn't a factory and they don't sell umbrellas.  I do not have a good way to describe it other than kind of bohemian hippie kind of place.  This was the first year that I had brought the kids and Jason to see it.  I didn't remember exactly what it was since I hadn't been in years but I remembered liking it as a kid and we went every year with my grandma.  This year we went with my mom and it is still a fun place.  The kids enjoyed seeing some Emus and ducks, walking in a bamboo forest and getting henna tattoos.  We had lunch while some chickens pecked the ground around our table which just added to the fun for the kids.    All in all it was a great beach week filled with fun activities surrounded by all of our family.