Toddler Travel

After 10 days of Toddler Travel, NJ's back and ready to attack! Niva got her Naughty Bangs haircut just in time for VACATION and posing for hundreds of pictures. Check out a few...

We started out our travels to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Syracuse:

The soft grass of the GP's front yard was so inviting to our bare feet.

Yes, Grandpa loves his Hot Lips pants. These two are the most awesome couple ever!

We picked our own strawberries at a farm.

Although you can't see it, most of what Niva picked were wildflowers.

The zoo was a barrel of fun as always!

Niva knew exactly who to go to when she was in need of a cookie. It was so funny how she would seek Grandma out, pull her by the finger and say, "Gomma, cookie."

Niva loved dancing to Grandma's piano playing.

In fact, Niva wanted to be near Grandma the whole time!

From Syracuse, we drove 6 hours to lovely East Sandwich Beach in Cape Cod. I learned two lessons during this drive: 1) Niva has the ability to say, "Mommy hold hands" 5000 times in a row (with futile results for her) and 2) I need to sit in the back seat during long road trips so I can hold the child's hand!

This is so much better than holding Mom's hand, why didn't I think of this??

Niva ran circles around Grandma's favorite, Nobska Lighthouse.

Look closely and you will see half of our "Bonzek Families Happy Days" plank.

A heat wave struck the last 3 days we were there. Since we had no AC in our cottage,  beautiful Nauset Beach was our solace each day. The hour long drive home was naptime for Niva. Worked out perfectly!

We took a 3 hour bike ride on the Cape Cod Rail Trail.  It must have worn NJ out because 20 minutes before we ended our ride, I saw a floppy little helmet head in the back...

...and saw this in the front! Ha!

Niva loved our evening gatherings with the fam... she just ate the attention up!

Niva even got to meet her long lost cousin Baby James who kindly shared a juice box with her. Niva was allowed all kinds of special treats on this trip!

Morning and night, Niva's favorite thing to do was skip around our cottage deck.

It was a great trip but we were all ready to come home. Unfortunately, our 7am flight out of Boston got cancelled. Long story short, we got an 8:30pm flight out of JFK and scored a trip to see Unkee Waj in Brooklyn along the way. Good times hangin with Unx but grrrrrumpy times for the exhausted toddler!

This tired baby was ready to sleep in her own bed!

The best part about 10 days of vacation with the kid was seeing her have so much fun. From watching her merrily interact with all the family members to relishing her "special treats", it was wonderful! By the way, Niva is sure going to miss the special treats that came along as the perks of vacations-- cookies, ice cream, strawberry shortcake,  saltwater taffy, sharing Fiber One bars with me, being able to watch Sesame Street on my Kindle anytime she wanted (our savior during the long plane and car rides). In fact, after we just got back from our trip, Niva went and brought me my Kindle and asked for Sesame Street. I sadly had to tell her that was only for vacation. Now, she is starting to nostalgically yell out, "Vacation!!" at random times. Sorry Neevy, I think I need a break from Toddler Travel for awhile!

I'm cute and I'm fun but I'm a lot of work too!