The Manz family and all familial additions to the Manz family head to Ocean City New Jersey for sun, sand and surf!
And also Ice cream, popcorn, bike-rides, salt-water taffy, fudge, rides, serious family bonding and... our annual beach-house-purchase hunt :)
It's a tradition.
One that we protect and love.
This year, however, was a bit different than in the past.
One week prior to our trip the Matriarch of the Manz Family OCNJ Trip was scheduled to have a stint put in for a blocked artery in her heart... it surprised us, but the doctors assured us she would be fine to go to the beach.
That is... until they found 3 blocked arteries and an out-patient procedure turned into triple bypass heart surgery 3 days later. It also meant... no OCNJ beach for my mom.
Now... my mother and father started us on this OCNJ tradition before I was even born! They both spent many summers down the shore. My mom used to tell me how she would just drive down to the beach for the day, lay out in the sun all day then drive home.
She was a beach girl!
And they passed that love onto us by building this tradition - we came down, just the 5 of us for my entire childhood.
This is what we do.
So it was heartbreaking to ALL of us that my mom and my dad would have to miss out this year on the OCNJ trip.
But... we are thankful the doctors caught the blocked arteries and were able to successfully fix them, by God's Grace, and so next year we can all be together down in OCNJ... healthier!
Mom was missed.
I would be lying if I said the pugs were missed... sorry mom.
Thankfully (and thanks to my Aunt Kathy for flying in to save the day!) My dad was able to come down for the last couple days.
The kids were thrilled... Opa is the fun one. Opa buys donuts.
This year was also the first year we had 10 kids in the house... that's right.
T E N kids.
Each of them representing 10 years of family building - Emma leads the pack as the eldest at a newly minted 10 years old and then Charlie rounds it out at 11 months.
It doesn't make for a quiet, serene, restful week of vacation.
But... we love the insanity.
We wouldn't change it for the world!
I love that these kids are getting the same experience we did.
They are having that OCNJ love pumped into their veins.
The tradition will live on!
It's special too because Lucy gets much-needed bonding time with her cousins.
My siblings live nearby one another so their kids get to see each other and build relationships fairly often, but Lucy misses out on that. I grew up having my cousins close by and seeing them pretty much weekly, so I'm sad she is so far from hers. But this week is filled with lots and lots of cousin time and she has been talking about and praying for her cousins ever since!
Her and Clara being so close in age got to spend lots and lots of time playing together.
I loved seeing their imaginations join forces!
It was Charlie's FIRST time at the beach
well... at least first time outside of utero.
We were excited to see his reaction to all that the beach had to offer.
He took to it quite well.
Lucy on the other hand was suddenly terrified of the ocean.
She refused to go near it.
She was content to remain in the sand - or she would find a small little pool of water that had formed somewhere away from the waves that were surely coming to eat her and she would just camp out there for the day.
She seems to have forgotten how much fun she had last year playing in the water...
It wasn't until the very last day when Opa was able to convince her to go in while he carried her.
She finally enjoyed it.
But don't you dare try and put her down - she'll rip your skin off with how tightly she is digging her nails into you in order to stay above the water.
Hopefully she grows out of that...
Speaking of expectations being dashed.... Every year I have high hopes of getting a good family photo... and every year I am disappointed.
I really need to set my expectations lower for that. A photo where we are all looking nice and looking at the camera and not crying... probably not gonna happen for awhile.
All in all. A great week down the shore!
I am always thankful for this opportunity to spend with my siblings, their spouses and all my nieces and nephews!
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| Lucy was sick the last night.. so she wasn't the happiest little camper in the annual Grandkids Photo |
P H O T O
D U M P
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