Ocean City was our choice for a family holiday this year, mainly because it seemed close and we could combine vacation and home comforts without breaking the bank. I really just needed to relax a bit and I knew the kids would be fine with sand and water all day for 6 days so it seemed perfect. The twist to the vacation was we rented a four bedroom condo right off the beach along with my brother ( whose younger and single) and my sister who has two kids a bit older than mine. I wasn't sure how the week would go with so many of us in one house, I sometimes get a bit antsy having to coordinate so many different personalities but this time actually not bad. We started out as as a group of nine then my brothers friend joined in and then we were ten. By the third day we had added 9 more people in form of my cousins, their kids, my mom and aunt. 
We spent most days buried and sleeping in sand, listening to music, eating sand sprinkled sandwiches and soaking up the sun. It was nice to really feel relaxed, the kids were mostly well behaved, no one got overwhelmingly cranky. The first night we attempted to go out to dinner but it was such a popular place and we went out a bit late, my kids started to melt down by the time we were seated, so I had to ride the bus back with the two of them by myself. That was a low point because I had a crying 2 year old and a crying 5 year old on a bus full of drunk people! I learnt my lesson from that, feed the kids before we go out or go out earlier.
At first, Arielle would not even go near the water, in fact when she saw the first wave she ran away crying and wanted to leave but eventually we coaxed her closer to the water and eventually by midweek she wouldn't get out of the water, so much so that she was making everyone nervous because she was so daring. Evalie, napped every single day we ware there, either on me or on the beach towels which allowed her to maintain enough energy to wake up every morning at 6:30 screaming and running down the halls waking everyone else up. I'm used to that but I think my brother was alarmed by her busting into his room and jumping on him!
I actually haven't ever spent that many days in a row on the beach (well maybe I have..but not in the US) and I realize that I really enjoyed it, the weather was perfect, not too hot and humid but warm enough to make the alternating between wet and dry pretty pleasant. We usually all packed coolers of food and drinks so we didn't have much need to walk back too the condo except for the occasional need to go to the bathroom or charge the phones. We would get to the beach at about 10 and stay until 6. The day we had more people than expected we just ordered pizza to the beach. They also had a beach bar fully stocked with food and drinks so there really was no shortage of supplies.
Most of the time, Arielle was happy to have her best cousin there with her but they had some spats as well, when the other cousins joined in or other kids on the beach tried to play with them, things got a little complicated, "threes was a crowd" and of course they wouldn't let Evalie play witht them so she made her own friends or played with Shaina (my 11yr old niece) when she wasn't in the water which wasn't much of the time.
I was also especially happy with the opportunity for my kiddies to bond with my brother, he's been away for most of their lives although he does visit and attend their birthday parties, baptism etc, they really only got to see him for a day or two at a time on holidays. Its better now that he's moved to the city because he's closer to us but I was still excited for them to really get time with him. 
On our first night, we didn't go out to eat so we took the kids for ice cream and treats after dinner at the candy kitchen which is basically a store filled with tempting chocolates, candies and toys. Its basically a little girls paradise. Within minutes of us getting in there, Evalie got so excited she knocked over a box of jawbreakers! The staff was not happy. 
The tides were pretty high and got progressively higher each day so we (well I didn't) built a fort to protect us from getting flooded. Everyone else on the beach just picked up and moved back but we were relentless, we wouldn't move back. We just kept building the wall higher and higher..each day we'd return and reclaim our spot and continue building up the wall. We had a dolphin sighting too! It was really about 30- 40 dolphins
We did have some decent dinners out, like the night we went to Phllips, even though we waited on line for a while, we eventually got in and I think everyone had a good time, the kids stayed out of trouble and ate all kinds of things. For a buffet style dinner, it was pretty good food and drinks. 
We had a nice time sitting out and watching the sunset from our balcony and an ice bucket challenge or two were completed up there! I was too chicken to do it though. Although the condo was nice, we really didn't spend too much time indoors. Maybe one or two nights we ate at home but otherwise we showered and slept there. It was decent though, more than enough space for everyone, my only problem was I didn't like having to clean up after everyone on my vacation so next time I would definitely hire a cleaning service to clean the place everyday like a hotel would...or just stay at a hotel/ serviced flat on the beach.
On our last day, we had to be out of the place by 10am so we decided to spend the day at the boardwalk and drive home at night. There was a little amusement park, Ripleys, tons of food and vendors so we bought all our souvenirs and spent the day down there. The beach was nice over by the boardwalk but very crowded with a very different type of crowd than we had at our beach. We put the kids on some rides, had some lunch and then as people started getting tired we decided it was time to go. Its always sad to get the end of a vacation but I do think it ended just in time. We all got some food for the ride said our good byes and that was it. The drive home was quiet and seemed quicker than it took to get there and we were all happy to be home.
