July was a whirlwind of a month filled with family, friends and a lot of sunshine!

We kicked off the month with Chloe’s first visit to a carnival. Dobbs Ferry was celebrating 150 years and had a classic carnival on the waterfront, filled with midway rides and cotton candy. We figured we would take this opportunity to put Chloe on her first “roller coaster”. Rob took her and she seemed excited, but once on the ride, her enthusiasm….waned. It ended up being kind of rough (as those rides usually are) and she didn’t like it. She just kept yelling, “Chloe get off!”

We then ventured over to the small car ride that goes MUCH slower and was probably more age-appropriate. Things started out well…

She even did fine as the ride started to go round and round, but then she saw me on the side and immediately started to cry and tried to get out of the car. I’ve never heard a chorus of parents cry out, “No no no no no!” in unison before until that moment. Thankfully, the operator stopped the ride immediately and Chloe hopped out and ran to me. I guess we will try again next year!

We celebrated the 4th a couple of times. The first time was with our neighbors. All of the kiddos are older than Chloe, but they are so incredibly sweet with her and seem to really enjoy playing with her. At one point, they were teaching her how to climb up a toy rock wall. She is very brave when it comes to climbing, but I think it helped having some big kids there cheering her on. And, of course, she made it to the top!

She also got to do her first sparklers with daddy, which proved to be both exciting and terrifying!

On the actual 4th of July, we went over to our friends Alyssa & Justin’s house to celebrate the birthday of their little girl, Callie. Callie and Chloe are just a couple of weeks apart in age and will be in the same class next year. I am excited for the girls to be together next year. It’s very convenient when the children of your friends get along with your child. It makes for the best play dates.

The biggest highlight if the month was our trip to the Cape. We go out every year and it is one of my favorite places on the planet. I just love how relaxed and laid back it is, and anywhere where the main activity is “beach” is OK in my book.

Mom and dad (or Granny & PopPop) joined us again this year, which is always such a treat. We stayed at a lovely house that had bunnies living in the backyard. Chloe was mesmerized by the little creatures and we went out to say hello to the bunnies several times a day.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have the best weather this trip, with several days of rain. But we made the most of it and did some sightseeing around the Cape. We took Chloe to a little farm (perhaps the tiniest farm ever? but it killed a couple of hours), spent a morning in Chatham and then spent a day in Nantucket. Lots of walking in lots of humidity, but Chloe enjoyed exploring and was just generally happy to be with Granny & PopPop.

We did get two good beach days and those were the best. Chloe is a true summer baby and loves being in the water and playing with the sand. PopPop introduced her to hermit crabs, so much of our time was spent finding the crabs and yelling, “I hold it!” until we put it in her palm. She also really enjoyed going on the boogie board and having daddy pull her around the water.

Despite the iffy weather, it was a great trip. We wrapped it all up on our last night at our favorite spot, Sesuit Harbor, for some lobster rolls and onion rings, which are best consumed topless, as you can see below 😉