Home again, home again, jiggety jig

So, we're home from our vacation. It was pretty decent, though like any vacation, it ended too soon.
We had a window of nice weather on Thursday morning, so we went out and went into the surf. Jen's sister and her sister's boyfriend showed up pretty early in the morning, but they were tuckered out from the trip down so they spent a decent amount of the first day just catching up on their sleep.

The weather turned bad so we watched some Muppet Show. Kris Kristofferson & Rita Coolidge were the guests. Kristofferson looked about seventeen years old.

I mentioned that Coolidge had long hair (it was the late 70s, everybody had long hair), and Lily said that she was pretty and I said that she had a very nice voice. Lily got very serious and said "Don't tell my mommy that. It would hurt her feelings."

I walked around town and Jen and Lily went on a short birding cruise. That was pretty neat. Cape May has only one kind of crappy bookstore, so that aspect was a little disappointing, but stomping around a town on foot is one of the little pleasures I really enjoy.

We had vacationed in Cape May three years ago and this building always reminds me of Sunday Morning Comin' Down for some reason.

Lily discovered the sound recorder feature that comes standard as part of Windows and she was using that to record short little messages to friends and family. When playing one of them back she furrowed her brow and said, "I don't know what those vibrations were in the background," which is such an odd thing for a four-year-old to say.We went to Sunset Beach for the second time, and for the second time, sudden clouds obscured the setting sun. Jen suggested I take a picture of the stoplight and pass that off as the sun. Here you go!

One of nature's miracles

On Friday, we went to the boardwalk and amusement park in Wildwood.

It's not called "Bat-parking". I'm just sayin'

We had checked out Dragon's Lair mini golf online prior to our departure, so Lily was really psyched to play. It was kitschy, but fun, though Lily got a little scared by the talking dragon.

Dude, your cousin's van called. It needs its dragon back.

We checked online and saw that the amusement pier was opening for business at noon, so that's when we aimed to arrive. Unfortunately, while they were technically open for business due to a scout jamboree, only a very limited selection of rides were running. Lily's only about 40 inches tall and that further limited which rides she could ride, and she understandably was getting a little frustrated. Fortunately we made found a magical fortune telling machine and made a wish to be "big" and was transformed into Tom Hanks.

We hung around a bit, but the weather turned yucky, so we headed back to the house for an afternoon map. We returned at six o'clock, when more of the rides were open. That actually worked out really well. Jen and Lily each got wristbands so they did most of the riding together, though there were some where a parent could ride with a kid without needing a ticket.

She went on her first roller coaster ride, which she described as "Scary, but really, really fun, tried little kid bumper cars for the first time and generally had a ball. I'm really glad that we went back.

Bonus! A picture of some giraffes for Karen!