5 Pretty/Ugly Things About Summer Vacation

Plus the WORST part of beaching with children.

Welcome to VACATION week here at In Pursuit. Vacation can be many things. Stressful! Disappointing! Expensive! Too infrequent! Too unstructured!

But it can also be relaxing, full of books, full of Pro Kadima volley records, full of beach sandwich glory!

It is, in short, the real epicenter of Pretty/Ugly.

Before we dig in, here’s a little recap of my previous encounters with summer vacation if you’d like to read.

• My top Cape Cod recs (restaurants, rainy days, caftans)

• Trying not to yell. Trying to VACATION.

• What I’ve learned from my vacation social media fasts!

• Last year’s fave summer reads.

• My lifetime of trying. My summer of not.

Last week, my family went to Cape Cod, as we do every year. Here are my highs and lows. My both/ands. My pretty/uglies.

5 Pretty/Ugly Things About Summer Vacation (mine specifically)

• I’m gonna start this little list by underscoring the absolute worst thing about beaching with children. It’s not the fact that they don’t know how to shake out a beach towel without spraying the rest of their family with sand. It’s not that they don’t know how to dig a hole without spraying the rest of their family with sand. It’s not the chasing them around with bottles of sunscreen. It’s not the yelling. Or the splashing. These things are bad but nothing - and I mean NOTHING - compares to this micro-moment of kid beaching badness.