Fire Island family getaway

We took a trip to Fire Island.  This is one of the beach communities on the East Coast that is a great place for a family getaway.  Even in just a single day, we’ve been able to squeeze in many memorable moments with the kids.  And somehow, the days seem longer here (in a good way) so in just a couple of days, we are able to soak up a week’s worth of relaxation.

The island is a quarter of a mile wide, so the ocean is never far away.  There are no cars on Fire Island, and we’ve been making our way around via a little red wagon that my 2 year old, Elijah, has fallen in love with.  We also have a large green wagon which we deck out with pillows and blankets for nap time on the go.

Today, the kids slept in (to 7 am!) and after a pancake breakfast (my weekly pancake breakfast tradition–in-the-making isn’t affected by the fact that we had to take a ferry to get here) we made our way to the playground.  The kiddie pool isn’t yet open, and we had the entire playground to ourselves.   The kids sloshed around in the sand, played on the swings, tire swing, and various jungle gyms, before a water break brought us back to the wagon.  We then made our way to the ball field one block away (passing the always fascinating tennis courts) where the weekly 6 – 12 year old kids baseball game was already underway.  The boys climbed in, around, and through the bleachers and then Elijah pulled his big brother Zach in the wagon to the beach.  The beach is wide and flat and we let the ocean tickle our toes for a while, before heading back home for breakfast (breakfast part 2 for the boys), curious to see if the rest of the family (Dad and the boys’ grandparents were up).

At the house, the boys spent half an hour filling the wading pool with water, and helping in the garden.

The afternoon brought another wagon ride for a visit into the cute, small town in Ocean Beach, where we had ice cream, ran around for fantastic people watching, hit the basket ball courts (where there are always free balls hanging out waiting to be played with), watched the boats, played nok hockey in the kids center, and took a million pictures of our long shadows stretching out ahead of us on the walk back home for a BBQ dinner.  We lazily crammed (if one can even accomplish this concept) a few days’ worth of activities into normal waking hours.  The extra beautiful thing is that the boys are so tuckered out from all the running around, and nap time and bed time is a breeze.