Trip to the beach!

We took our first post-Prarthna's arrival in this world trip to the beach today. It was proposed by Sudhaker on Saturday and we finalized the plan with them that evening about going today. They wanted to go to Rehoboth to try and include some shopping (they are compulsive shoppers, I think :-)) but I convinced them that we should go to a South Jersey beach as we had never been there and this might be our last chance. He did inquire about an "outlet" mall. Turned out there is one in Atlantic City but we never got to that.

The weather turned out to be picture perfect. We left Newark around 10 AM and arrived in Wildwood around noon. We took a long break on the way at a Wawa for Prarthna to eat, and do her "jumping jacks". We picked up all our stuff and set up camp near the ocean with our mats, umbrella, and tons of food, some of which had been consumed during the onward journey. There were quite a few people, although not as many as you would see later in the season. The water was still quite chilly. We managed to get in for a few minutes at a time, but no one mustered the courage to stay for long periods. Prarthna behaved herself pretty well. She took one nap, and generally stayed happy. I read a book for a little bit while the others took a walk. In general, we took in the sights of sun, sand, and frolic. There was a kite festival going on and we saw some exquisite kites. The drive back was quite comfortable and we made it back in an hour and a half. Overall, it turned out to be quite an enjoyable day. We relaxed, talked, ate, and spent some good time together.

Prarthna continues to grow and do more and more things! Yesterday, she crawled a good 30 ft at a real fast clip. Prachi called her and she went to her mixing scooting, old fashioned crawling, and some leaps as well. She has perfected standing up with support and now does it all the time in the crib.

My wife is calling me. So I better publish this and get going!