One trip I really look forward to each year is our trip to the Cape. This year we stayed 8 nights, and it was absolutely perfect. I think it gets harder and harder to leave the beach each time we go. We just need to live there! It really was a great vacation though.
The kids had begged to leave super early on Saturday morning, so we said sure. They’re great travelers and we got to the beach before noon! It was awesome. We headed straight out to the beach and got tons of beach time that first day.
While the first few hours of the drive to the Cape are interstate, the last few hours look like this. It always feels like we are going to the middle of nowhere, our own little secluded paradise. Honestly, even the drive is relaxing…and pretty.
This picture was their “straight out of the van after driving from Alabama and straight into the ocean picture!”
And our “we made it” picture!
The beach was absolutely perfect the week we were there. The ocean was clear-blue, practically no waves (we joke that sometimes the Cape seems like a clear, salt-water lake because of the lack of waves). We did have 2 days with a little bit of waves (still very small), but it’s perfect for playing in.
Duke photo bombed the picture of us.
Dawson and Carter of course dug very deep holes all week.
Clayton and Nora Kate found this sun shade/tent in our townhouse and wanted it out at the beach every day because they turned in into a restaurant they named Bay Sharks. They played for hours serving customers at Bay Sharks. Duke especially like to go back in this tent with them.
One of the many hermit crabs the kids caught.
NK wanted a picture in our coverups.
Two brother, two holes, connected by a tunnel.
Beach hair, don’t care….heading back down to the beach to watch the sun set with Nora Kate.
A must on any trip to the Cape…head to the Trading Post to take a picture at the chair.
We have one from every trip.
My beach bums.
Clayton loved all the little fish we caught so much.
Here he is holding one.
No beach trip is complete without a glow stick swim at night.
Let’s stay here forever.
Of course the cartwheel queen did cartwheels on the beach.
Clayton
Dawson buried Carter, Nora Kate, and Clayton.
Sunset over the dunes
Carter
Early every morning we would go down to the beach with our nets and see what we could catch. We caught hermit crabs, blue crab, jelly fish, ribbon fish, flounder (we threw it back! I know they’re protected), horseshoe crabs, sea urchins, fiddler crabs, and various other kinds of fish.
This was the sunrise over the bay. No filter
These 5 love the beach
Catching various creatures with nets.
Got up early on morning to bring back our favorite donuts!
One of the ribbon fish Dawson caught.
These fish are really mean as we quickly learned!
The flounder Dawson reeled in before throwing it back!
Duke loves the beach so much, and he learned to love swimming in the ocean this year too. He learned the command “go to the beach” and would run downstairs and wait at the door for us to take him down to the beach.
John celebrated his birthday while we were there! We started John’s birthday by spending about 3-4 hours kayaking around the bay. We had 3 kayaks. Carter and Dawson in one, John and Clayton in another, and Nora Kate and I in the third. This was so much fun!! It was definitely a good workout, but we saw such neat wildlife under our kayaks!! We didn’t take any pictures because we didn’t take our phones for fear of them getting wet. But we saw a little sand area jetting out from the land that when I first saw it from a distance I thought it looked like the ground was moving. As we paddled closer there were hundreds and hundreds of crabs crawling on it, crawling on top of each other. It was so neat! It looked like something from National Geographic! We also saw and scooped up lots and lots of urchins. We also saw several horseshoe crabs and sting rays!
We decided to go out to eat for his birthday dinner at our favorite restaurant ever-Indian Pass Raw Bar. Baked oysters on your birthday-what a treat!
Here we are waiting to go in Indian Pass Raw Bar. Yes, two people have on hoodies, no it wasn’t cold at all. They just had the AC cranked really cold and after being in the hot sun all day Clayton and NK were cold!
We baked John a birthday cake at the cape. Not our prettiest cake ever (I didn’t take my normal cake pans to use), but it was pretty tasty!
Relaxation looks like this
And this
Carter fishing.
I don’t know if there is anywhere more beautiful.
Playing on the playground
Carter was the Blue Crab catcher of the week. He caught more blue crab than anyone.
Nora Kate
Dawson with one of his sand sculptures
Everyone wearing blue and white stripes.
Normally Dawson catches pin fish in Pop’s cast net, but he was surprised to pull this one out of the net.
Dawson
These teeny, tiny frogs were everywhere.
We always see and hear a lot of frogs on the Cape, but never any this small.
Always moving
Morning beach walk with my girl
Clayton enjoying a sprite (he-probably more than anyone else-loves the special food and drinks we get at the beach that we normally don’t have at home).
We rarely eat inside when we are at the beach. This was taco night on our middle balcony.
Family picture
Panoramic view
Watching for the perfect wave.
What’s a beach trip without a glow stick walk?!
Nora Kate
Clayton relaxing by the pool
Cone heads
Beach selfie
Another ribbon fish in the throw in net!
Carter trying to find a crab
Another sand sculpture.
Two days in a row we saw a shark swimming right by us VERY VERY close into shore! I got a video, but for some reason the blog is not allowing me to add it right now. It was CRAZY close though! It was really neat to see.
We really did have the absolute most perfect time. This picture was when we were leaving to come home. This was the only time it looked rainy the entire week. It should have made it a little easier to leave the beach knowing rain was moving in, but it’s never easy to leave. We are so thankful for the wonderfully time we had together on the Cape this year. It was so very relaxing and fun! We can’t wait to go back.
