Cape Cod 2019! Summer vacaaaaay

Ok so I suspect 75% of my readers (6 out of a possible 8, haha) are also on Facebook and have therefore seen most of these pictures already. To that 75% I say: feel free to skip this post and look forward to the next one, which will be a riveting account of second grade football so far.

Let's dive in! By way of background, I was feeling a tad "been there done that" with Block Island this year. Given where we live, pretty much everyone gets down to the cape and you know, it's for a good reason. There are zillions of beaches and so many sights and things to do: mini golf, bumper boats, ziplines, trampolines, ice cream, shark stuff, water sports, etc etc. Generally more goings-on than BI and we wanted to explore a new place.

{Pretend I've just told you all the criteria and research I did about where we were going to go. Turns out the cape is huge.} We ended up in Chatham and specifically, a house walking distance from Ridgevale Beach. It was so cute and actually perfect for us.

Gosh we had such a great week you guys! The weather was this:

And the only way to do this is to go day by day. Sorry.

So let's commence! Saturday July 27. Uncle Erik was with us and we took off to meet up with Kari and Ben and get over the bridge as early as possible.

Fun fact: we didn't even ride our bikes once.

This was our first experience out on the beach:

And then we went into town, had lunch, moved into the house and enjoyed some late afternoon beach time. Off to a good start!

Sunday GG arrived and we spent our first full day at Ridgevale Beach. The week before we were there, there had been a tornado and serious storms in the area, so the water all week in the sound was churned up, brown, and full of seaweed :( So that wasn't super fun but we ended up getting to other beaches that had been raked later in the week. See in the background?

The Seafarer, where GG/Erik/Grandma and Grandpa stayed had a pool so we did a quick dip there after the beach:

Followed by lawn games before dinner (you can't have long grass for those! Ashton generously cut it for us haha):

Monday - White Crest Beach in Wellfleet. It just felt epic, the geography is so dramatic because you hike down the bluff to get there:

And the ocean rolls in with these emerald green swells. 

It was a great day! We even made it to the Beachcomber for some oyster shooters real quick :)

But beware the beauty! It was very much "swim at your own risk" - the current was really too strong for the kids and we didn't want to go in anyway due to the seals! There were so many, just bobbing along, not a care in the world. 

Ok well there's only one in that picture but there were TONS all day. This was the viral twitter photo that emerged two days later, a little further up:

Because where there are seals...Daahh DUN. 

Spoiler alert, we did not become Jaws victims and played miniature golf on the way home. 

Tuesday - We rolled on down to Ridgevale, wagon style:

Look at Alex in his sunglasses chugging his seltzer. Cracks me up.

But ugh when we got there, sooo much seaweed :(

So we hopped in the car and went to Hardings Beach which was a bit better.

I promise that's the last seaweed report. Anyway Grandma and Grandpa arrived and we celebrated Ashton turning 8 :) 

Aunt Lizzy got Ashton the same shirt that Holden happened to be wearing :)

He got a skimboard, a metal detector, some Pokemon stuff, clothes, the first Harry Potter book, and a FitBit. What he DIDN'T get was cake or ice cream because it got too late to go out :( Like everyone was crying and it was totally my fault. The grown-up dinner took way too long to make.

WEDNESDAY moving right along here! Red River Beach. Ahhhh.

The fun thing about this day was that our new neighbor friends in Natick were also in Chatham that week and they met us at the beach. Kellan and Alex are going to be in Kindergarten together at Lilja.

So cute. Off the explore! These kids spent so many hours this week collecting fish, snails, crabs and other little guys :)

More Tidal Ball. So much Tidal Ball. 

Grand Slam Entertainment post-beach! All the fun things plus Kari and I ziplined! Psssh, you can't tell, but I'm actually not an American Ninja Warrior or anything ;)

Thurrrrrrsday! We're getting there everyone. Shopping in the morning and the shark museum:

  (Nice hand placement Alex. Hand to face).

Afternoon at the Ridgevale tide pools

Dinner and then the baseball game :)

 SO fun. Ashton was obsessed with catching a fly ball and we had to drag him out of there.

 {Pause for a water break. This post is exhausting.}

Friday! Happy birthday Callie! Stay with me...

Friday, ironically, we figured out where the very best part of Ridgevale Beach actually is - all the way down by the inlet. The water is warm, clear and shallow. It was gorgeous.

Erik, GG, Grandma and Grandpa all left Friday morning so we decided to head to Wequassett Resort for our last dinner and Callie's birthday.

This picture sums Alex up to a T :)

Last stop of the night, Sundae School in Harwich Port.

 I'm not usually an ice cream person, but I had some coffee Oreo thing and it was like, incredible. This place lived up to its reputation.

And Saturday, everyone, we packed up and went home. To our family who always drives FAR distances to be with us, thank you. To Cape Cod, you define what it feels like to be on "summer vacation". To Mother Nature, you more than made up for last year and the year before. And to all the creatures who spent time in our buckets wondering what the hell happened, send me your therapy bills.

School starts in two weeks y'all. Things are about to get real!