Valeria Out Loud

We left for Cape Cod Monday afternoon. It all started off pretty great. Got to The Cape in record timing. The girls were angels the whole ride down. The sun was shining, and the sky looked like it was painted by Raphael with those perfect wispy clouds.

Our hotel for this visit was the Irish Village in South Yarmouth. It is set on Rt. 28, amongst a ton of attractions and other resorts. Everyone that works at this hotel is from Ireland. Except the waitstaff in the restaurant. Which gives its name some authenticity. heh. It is a family run hotel, and its location is great for traveling around The Cape. We were real pleased with the hotel. Our room was decent in size and clean; and we had the pool side view. Which doesn’t mean much when it’s 50 degrees out, but during our stay, we were talking about going back again to check it out in the Summer. The girls had their own space with a TV and pull out bed, which they thought was so awesome. They rarely sleep together and do not have TVs in their bedrooms at home. Overall, the hotel, to sleep in, was decent. Needed some maintenance/love, but I would stay there again for day tripping around.

The hotel has a fairly large restaurant/bar, indoor and outdoor pool, and what I saw, a mini gym. The restaurant serves your typical Irish / American pub style food. The gentleman that runs that part of the hotel is real nice, a great host and his accent was perfection. He treated us real well. And always enthusiastic seeing us. They had entertainment the entire day long in the restaurant, for kids and later for adults. It, too, was decent. The food we ate was good, fresh fish; and the kids enjoyed everything. Only thing is, it could use a sharper eye for painting/maintenance.

The first place we hit up, after unloading our bags in the room, was the Cape Cod Creamery. The best ice cream in South Yarmouth..I swear to you. Their flavors are all namesakes of The Cape, and fun combinations. Last time we were in this part of The Cape we went to a lot of places, and they all were mediocre by comparison. We have talked about this place all year long! One of our favorite flavors, that is nut free, is the Tisbury Twix ice cream. Just the best. *drool*

Then. Right after this outing, we headed back to the hotel, where we found out about the Marathon bombing. I am still shocked. We were changing to go swimming. Turned on the TV and saw the news. When they said there was a bombing at the Marathon, we were all in disbelief. My heart sank for all those people, who were there just having fun rooting for their family and friends running. Innocent lives. The images were so terrifying, and unimaginable that they were from Boston..on Boylston Street! MY CITY!

For some reason, the hotel didn’t have great wifi reception anywhere. So, even though my family and friends from around the globe were messaging me, I wasn’t getting a thing. Neither ipad got reception, and even our cells seemed sluggish. Times like this, I hate being without technology.

What the hell is going on in this world, really? I just can’t fathom why someone would do such a horrific thing. What sense, or, what does this accomplish for them? Especially with young people and children around. Ugh. Those three young, beautiful people lost their lives!! So many people lost limbs, got badly injured other ways, and many more mentally damaged, too. *heartache* So enraging. Confusing. Heartbreaking. Saddening. And fear invoking.

Then you see or hear about the amazing support that is out there. People helping people. banding together in love. Some people are just amazing. Like those that took shirts of their backs to use as tourniquets to stop the bleeding on some that lost limbs, or, those that comforted strangers as they lay practically lifeless on the ground, or, someone like that surgeon who just ran the 26.2 miles, only to get back on his feet to run an extra 2 more miles to work on those affected by the blasts in surgery.

… I care deeply about Boston. This is my home. I work here. I play here. It’s MY CITY. The moments that followed finding out the news were awkward for me. Boston IS my city. Even though The Cape is less than a couple hours away, I felt like I was on the other side of the world. Like I said, no internet, so it was a weird disconnection from what I am used to with information. Sort of isolating. The rest of our trip was fun, but with regards to this news, we spent it secretly getting information while the kids were busy.

That next morning, I decided to take the girls to Starbucks a few miles away for a good coffee, read news and to get messages. Thank God for that place. I want to say that I appreciate every single message I got the night before on text, and, the emails and fb messages I found that morning. EVERY SINGLE ONE. I am super lucky to be loved by so many.

Back to our trip.

My girls LOOOOVE to swim. And they love pools. They both started swim lessons at 3 yrs old through their preK program, fantastic program. The past year, our youngest has been taking an actual instruction class not part of her preK program, which is where she learned the back stroke and other fun swimming techniques that she loves to show off. So, they are naturals in the water. Me, I love to wear bathing suits sunning on the beach; I am only a fan of cold water when it’s hot outside. My kids had a blast swimming with their Daddy. They are a lot of fun to watch, and I enjoy that I don’t have to be in the water so much. hah

The next day, we headed off to Pirate’s Cove mini golf course after a late breakfast. It was literally a minute down the road. I wanted to go last year, but the girls were not old enough…but they were this year! YES! This place is fun, just like I thought it would be! We went down the Captain’s Course, and the girls had so much fun golfing through caves, walking over a ton of bridges and seeing pirates in every nook and corner. It was a bit chilly and windy out, but the sun was strong enough to keep us warmed up. The girls played a good game, too! BUT, who was the winner? My husband and I tied! Doh!!

On our last day, I took the girls on a shopping trip after grabbing a coffee, then spent the day at the hotel doing all the activities they wanted. The hotel had a lot going on for the children during school vacation week which was great. So, we took them to make 3 crafts, get their face painted, balloons, see the clown, and of course more …SWIMMING!

All in all, this trip was a perfect break from the monotony of working and regular life stupidity. Throughout the bombing was on my mind, it was still great not to have to clean/cook for three days, and we made some great memories.