Once Upon a Time...

Once upon a time Ben and I took our niece and nephew, Amy and Daniel, to the beach town of Cape May, N.J. for the Fourth of July. 

We traveled on the ferry….

…and stayed at the old Victorian and very child-friendly Chalfonte Hotel.

We all had a great time, even though our car broke down on the way home. 

Amy and Daniel are now all grown up with families and nieces and nephews of their own, but always in the back of my mind I see them as the children we so enjoyed. 

And, honestly, in the back of my mind I see myself as the young adult woman I was in those days, just starting my career, just married, on the brink of those full decades to come.

For years I have been looking for the photographs we took on that trip and I almost cried the other day when I found them in a tray of old slides that were stuck --where else?---down in the basement.

 Not wanting to trust them to the mail, we found a place that would scan them on site.   When I loaded up the digital files yesterday and saw these precious images, I was taken back to another place and time.

Once upon a time….and oh, so long ago.