New Jersey Part 5: Ocean City

 One night during our stay we drove down to Ocean City to enjoy the boardwalk and maybe watch the making of some saltwater taffy.  The summer before we adopted Ellie, we spent a week in this town and I knew she would love the attractions.

 I think Ellie's favorite thing about the beach is the abundance of hermit crabs.  We had to stop and look at each and every cage.

Ellie's 2nd favorite thing about the beach are all the seagulls!  Still as much a bird lover as ever!

One thing I didn't remember about Ocean City (probably because I didn't have a child at the time) were all the amusement park rides.  We told Ellie that she could choose ONE ride so she and I took a turn on the giant ferris wheel.

Reni wanted to take a turn walking the boardwalk.  This might be as good a time as any to talk a little bit about Reni's "shoes" which you can see peeking out under his shorts in the photo above.

Sometime this spring I noticed that Reni would take plastic drinking cups and stick them on the bottom of his right let.  He'd walk around the apartment stomping every other step like a pirate.  Then one day he found the IKEA kids' cup and it was a perfect fit. A little more flared at the top and shallower in height than most cups so his leg fit all the way in, they suctioned on much like a more sophisticated prosthetic leg and distributed his weight off the bottom of his leg to the soft tissue on the sides. After months of trying to figure out what Reni could wear on his legs outdoors without tearing up his pants or skin, including some (hot) woolly-but padded, slippers that stayed on with a pair of suspenders worn under his clothes, all it took were a couple of cups from a $2 set of plasticware.

Nathan took a 2nd cup and cut out an opening in the back to accommodate the extra length of tissue on Reni's left leg and now he had a pair.  All that remained was for Nathan to add some foamy rubber to the bottoms for traction.  One of the cutest things I've heard Reni say as we're getting ready to go out the door is, "Where my shooos?"

Finally, no trip to the boardwalk is complete without food for which the category "junk" was invented.