Beach Trip

We spent last week at the Beach - Seagrove - with 9 children (ages 9yo-10mo) and 6 adults.  Justin and two of his childhood friends (Brett Saliba and Ben Faulk) and all of our families piled into one house for the week.  The weather couldn't have been more perfect (considering it rained for 5 days straight before we arrived), the house was perfect, the beach was beautiful, breezy and most of all entertaining. When you gather that many children, you never know exactly how it will turn out and thankfully they all got along so well.  The the normal kid stuff, but overall it was fabulous.  We ate in most nights but made it out to dinner twice.  The house thankfully had a pool that helped to drain energy as well.  We have never spent an entire week at the beach and I am thankful that we did it with these two amazing families.  Evenings were the most hectic, but once the kids were fed we usually enjoyed a delicious dinner before putting them down and getting to enjoy some adult time. Lots of laughter and special memories made!

Oh and to add to the fun...Collier was the ONLY boy!  Thankfully he is too young to really care this trip.  He did awesome and enjoyed having older kids to play with.  They are all so sweet with him.  Plus he did get some guy time with the Daddies!

Collier did amazing in the ocean.  It took him a little bit to get used to and comfortable in the water - salty, strong waves, etc.  But by the 2nd day he was full speed.  He loved the boogie board - Justin spent a lot of time pulling him so he could ride the waves.  He constantly wanted to go out to the sand bar.  He would just float and swim all along the shore line.  But he wouldn't swim in the pool without his puddle jumper...so strange!  He did so good the entire trip, needless to say he was worn out by the end of the week - I am thinking it may take this entire week for both of my kiddo's to recover from the beach!

Kenley did way better than I thought she would.  I wasn't exactly sure how she would do in the sand.  Thankfully she didn't eat it but she did enjoy playing in it.  As long as she had a few buckets or cups to move sand in and out of she was pretty content.  She also wouldn't hesitate running straight for the ocean without ever slowing down.  A few times she would have been way over her head if I had not stopped her.  She would kick and squeal with delight when we held her in the water!  I will say, the only BAD part about having kids who sleep in their beds and don't get rocked or cuddled to sleep...is that they need a bed to sleep.  I tried every day to get Kenley to nap on the beach and nothing worked.  I tried walking her, sitting and singing to her, laying her down, patting her back, the list goes on.  She never would give it up and nap on the beach, so we had to head to the house for nap times!  It worked out fine, I just wished she could have enjoyed a beach nap...there is just nothing better :)  But now that we are home, I am really glad that everyone is in their OWN beds!

Pool Time:

 Beach Time - Lots of play and building in the sand!

 they also played several rounds of baseball on the beach!  These girls are not afraid to get dirty!

 Collier and Mia would run and dive into the water!!

 They even made it out crab'n one night with the older kids.  Collier wasn't a huge fan but hung in there pretty good!

 
And plenty of water time too...that included boogie boards, shell and treasure hunting, fish looking, wave jumping and much much more!

 This is the ONLY picture that we managed to get with everyone...Kenley did make it she was just hiding behind Riley Cate (to my right)

 I just can't say enough about these sweet friends.  Thankful for the week of fun and time with family and friends!  Hope we can do it again next year!!