Assateague Island, Maryland

If you enjoy camping, a wonderful spot is Assateague Island, Maryland. The beach is absolutely beautiful, although you do have to be careful of rip-tides, which can pull you out before you know it. Our kids held hands for safety.

We also enjoyed watching the little clams wash in with each wave and quickly bury themselves back in the water.

The National Park there has a National Seashore Museum with hands-on activities for the kids.

They also have three trails: a Life of Dunes, Life of Marsh, and a Forest Trail. At the Seashore Museum they will give you little booklets on each of these trails and the trails are so nice my husband was able to push me in my wheelchair on them.

But, the most fantastic part is seeing the wild ponies, which just wander the whole island. We saw them on a dozen different occasions, including just wandering by our campsite! Although you cannot touch them, they are wonderful to see, living wild and free.

And we had the added bonus of a wild deer wandering into our campsite. He just walked right up to my son, Sam.

North Beach

My great friend Mendy told me about this beach out on the Chesapeake Bay. While I've been to beaches on both sides of it, I've never tried this one.

First off, it's only an hour from my house. That's awesome. The drive went great and the weather was PERFECT. I recruited several friends to come along, which helped a LOT. Unfortunately, no one who had children any where near Sheely's age was able to come, which bummed her out quite a bit. She found a great 4 year old girl to play with, though :)

One annoying thing: since it's a municipal beach and not a regional park, you do have to pay. $5 per person. However, here are the good things: bathrooms RIGHT there, nice sand, fun pier to play on, a huge wooden pirate ship to play on, they have the beach NETTED OFF so I did not see ONE JELLYFISH the entire time. IN AUGUST! That's worth $5 a person, for my crew. Sheely's got jellyfish-phobia. The water is super shallow, although the mud/sand is pretty slimy once you get past the rocks. There are hardly any waves (which can be good or bad, depending on whatcha like).

We had a fantastic time, I'd definitely go again.

A view of the beach where we played, from out on the pier:

How Sheely spent much of our day: in time out

all the kids!!

the mommies (and an aunt)

my three sweet ones in their floaties

the mud was a big draw for my boys

there are two sides to the beach - after you pay you can go right or left of the pier. On the left is the pirate ship, so it was more crowded. We chose the less crowded right side.

see the nets keeping those jellies away??

my sand-lover

on the pirate ship