Happy New Year!

Our New Year's weekend started with trying out a new toy from Nana - our baby backpack.

Claire's face lit up as soon as Daddy put it on with her in it.  She just LOVES being up high (hopefully she always does since she'll most likely be taller than all of her classmates).  

Once Claire was done taking the baby backpack for a test drive, we headed over to my cousin's house for a family get together on friday night.  This guy being the main reason for our get together :)

It was the first time in a long long time, all of the cousins were in one place at one time.  I still can't believe we actually got a picture with everyone looking...including the little ones.

Claire did much better with her stranger anxiety.  She only cried once the whole night (poor cousin Michael)....which wasn't bad considering all of the new faces she was introduced to.  One quick family pic and we were on our way down the shore for the rest of the weekend.

Ocean City, NJ does a big New Year's celebration every year.  They have a bunch of family events on New Year's Eve starting at 4pm.  Things like barbershop quartets, grease bands, magic shows, plays, jumpy castles, and of course rides on the boardwalk.  Being that Claire isn't even a year old yet, we figured it would be kind of a waste to buy tickets since she wouldn't really get it so we just walked the boards for a little bit during the day, daddy made a fabulous steak dinner for us at night, and then we watched the fireworks that went off at midnight from the 3rd floor balcony of the beach house (while Claire slept of course).

On New Year's Day, we just so happened to be up on the boardwalk when Ocean City's First Dip was beginning - when everyone runs into the ocean for the first time together in the new year.  Nana hung out with Claire on the boardwalk while Patrick and I ran down to the beach to get a better look.

We could not believe the amount of people that showed up for it.  

Especially the number of people that were in bathing suits in the middle of winter - most of which were little kids!

It was so crowded we couldn't even get close enough to see everyone taking their first dip.  I just held the camera up and snapped away.  This was the best pic I got of people jumping in...

Right after taking this pic, we headed back to the boardwalk. And beat the crowds...

I'm really glad we got to witness the first dip.  It was so much fun, I think we may do it next year....maybe Claire can dip her piggies in with us.  She looks excited at the thought :)

Love that face.