The New Jersey Shore - Boardwalk for the day

This summer has been a wacky one. I had so many plans to do things while off on maternity leave, in my head ... and never really got to do much of anything I had hoped. I planned to go see and spend time with so many friends, most of which never panned out. It seemed like I spent a lot of our summer driving to doctor appointments, calling the insurance company, dealing with bad hormonal baby blues days, dealing with my 'maternity leave' that had paperwork issues the entire time and required me to make hours of phone calls... and did I mention driving to doctor appointments? Days turned into weeks.... weeks turned into... the entire summer gone! It was only towards the end of my leave that I truly got to enjoy a full day with my son ... and/or my daughter. I barely even got to see any friends that I had hoped to spend time with this summer. I still have some friends that have not even met Tyler yet. We normally go down to the NJ Shore each summer for a few day trips... and we didn't even make it down there all summer!

Once I went back to work, it was Brian's turn to take off from work (NJ State baby bonding time) with Tyler for 4 weeks. I decided to take a day off from work one day so we could go down to the shore for the day. We went to Jenkinson's Boardwalk at Point Pleasant beach about an hour & 1/2 away. (It's not the area called "Seaside" that recently had that horrible fire; that's 30 minutes south of Point Pleasant). It was 70 degrees and sunny - we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. And since we went in the "off season" after labor day, parking was cheap and we parked right next to the boardwalk. We walked the boardwalk, had a nice lunch, went to the Aquarium (they have one right on the boardwalk - how cool!), of course Julianna had a blast riding all of the rides, and then we got ice cream... and of course we HAD to go on the beach. Julianna collected rocks & shells, put them in a bottle, and we brought them home. We washed the rocks off and Julianna put them in our fish tank for "Mo" & "Doc", our huge goldfish.

Before the pictures from the boardwalk -
I would like to ask you to click HERE and go to my last post that talks about our walk for the "CHD Coalition" (Congenital Heart Defect Coalition). As you know, Tyler was born with a congenital heart defect and we are raising money for CHD research and detection. 

This is a typical house on the beach by Point Pleasant. They were one of the towns that was hit by Hurricane Sandy, although there were areas hit much harder than them. People are still rebuilding everywhere. Let's pray there isn't another hurricane here this year (crossing fingers!). 

This whole area at the Jenkinson's Inlet was rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy. We were here last summer and I recall the inlet sitting area being much larger.... with no chain link. 

Looking out at the inlet. 

This is how we roll. 

 The penguins were Julianna's favorite! (Iphone picture) 

At the aquarium 

Selfie with Tyler!

Our girl had such a great day - she couldn't get enough of the rides! 

Julianna loved the rides- she loved being an airplane pilot! 

Loves the swings! 

Waiting on line to get on a ride - SO excited! 

She already loves super fast spinning rides with Daddy - 

I'll stay on the sidelines and take pictures thank you very much! 

Julianna loves the rides! Have I mentioned that? 

The kid's Choo Choo Train on the boardwalk!