Life's a Beach!

I so admire those people who can take a vacation's worth of pictures and pull out five or six favorites to post, knowing that that's about enough to maintain interest.

I am not one of those people, and so begins a monster post about our beach trip over Labor Day weekend. But when reviewing the hundreds of images on our computer (and that's after Tyler mercilessly deleted hundreds others), I did the best I could at hitting the highlights. And at least I'm not making you watch them in slide form on a Saturday night! (Jess, we'll totally do that at Thanksgiving.)

This trip marked Katie Beth's maiden voyage to the beach....Santa Rosa Beach on the Gulf Coast to be exact.

She was a sweet baby and tolerated the car, the pack-n-play, the condo, the beach all very well..."well" being a relative term for a four-month old!

Knowing how elusive a good shot can be with fussy babies and feet-dragging guys, we made a couple of attempts at the required family-beach-pictures.

"The Ben Pout". He has perfected this, and uses it when reprimanded, ever so slightly. This time the offense was not being able to eat a cookie after the first picture.

Everyone looking at the camera = success!

bonus points for the dramatic sunset!

Everyone in the frame, but kids looking at who-knows-what = eh, good enough!

There there's these two, who now have a dozen of the same perfect pictures because they are so darn cute.

And a great shot of my parents, who made the trip possible. Thank you!

A few more from the golden hour...

The rest of these are in random order, but since we spent every day at the beach, at the beach, it doesn't really matter!

Building sandcastles with "Aunt Dess"

Bathing beauty hamming it up

Morning in the condo

soaking up the sun

popsicles with daddy

flying a kite

lounging with Grandpa

OK, well Tyler and I did go to the outlets one afternoon, which explains my makeup and an outfit other than a beach coverup... J & M didn't want to go, and cooked dinner while my parents watched the kids. This is the life!

My not-so-crabby girl

sweet, sandy toddler feet

Ben and his "Maw". They were so inseperable during the trip that we started referring to them as one person, "Maben".

Crab hunting!

All three, just happy as clams

He promptly wiped his cheeks after this picture - so sad!

Boo!

This year was finally the year that Ben enjoyed playing in the ocean and sand! (2009 and 2008 were not as successful.) He had so much fun every morning, which always makes for a great nap in the afternoon. :)

float from Nana? check.

Toy Story towel? check.

50 SPF lotion, sunglasses, hat, longsleeve rash guard? check.

Let's hit the beach!

(what? so I don't want his precious baby skin to burn!)

working away

Talking strategy with Daddy

Surf's up, Ben!

Isles of Adventure, we missed you the moment we woke up with you gone. Please feel free to refer to the following pictures of sweet bonding as often as you like until Thanksgiving.

Thanks for the Elmo hoodie, "Uncle Myhill"!

Such a fun, relaxing and refreshing trip and great to have everyone under one roof (well, for a few days anyway...I'd settle for same city...same roof might be a little much!). See you next year beach!