Our Beach Vacation: Part 1

Back in the spring, we scheduled a week of vacation for the end of the summer. After looking forward to it for what seemed like forever, the time finally came for us to pack up and head to the beach! T's parents joined us for the first three nights, and my parents came for the last three nights.

To summarize, it was a week full of sun, sand, seashells, sand castles, seafood, "sun scream" (applied liberally multiple times a day...), ice cream, pool time, potty time (training is well underway for one soon to be 3 year old...), and Peter Pan reading, with a healthy dose of Olympics watching, of course! The girls had such fun, and we enjoyed the chance to watch them experience so many new things and relax some, too.

I have had a hard time narrowing down the pictures to post, so I've decided to share alot of them.

We left on Friday afternoon and spent the night in with T's aunt, uncle, and cousin on the MS Gulf Coast. We had a great time visiting and the girls loved playing at their house. While making up the girls' bed, T had a bit of a fall, but LL was quick to offer her beloved Cinderella ice pack (oh yes, it came on vacation with us!). Even though he just had a minor bump on the knee, AG and LL both applied bandaids and soon he was good as new!


That night we tried a new sleeping arrangement...AG and LL slept in the same bed for the first time! It worked out so well we had them share all week at the beach, too!


Nana introduced SJ to the waves and sand our first day at the beach. At first she pulled her feet back from both, but by the end of the day she'd decided to not only touch but taste the sand (of course!)


AG and Grandpa got busy building a sand castle.


Have you ever seen a gator and crawfish this cute?


Another day, another trip to the beach! T and AG took a stroll...


Grandpa and LL went in search of shells...


and Nana and SJ played peekaboo in the shade!


SJ was really warming up to the beach!


Looking for crabs in the waves...


We all enjoyed the pool where we stayed, too!


We walked back from the pool each day single-file. This was the girls' idea, and LL especially seemed to enjoy practicing for school!


Grandpa continued the tradition of reading Peter Pan to eager little ears. Don't even think about skipping a page...the next generation has it memorized now!


More pictures from the second half of the week to come!