The Beach - Part 2 of 3

Let the adventure continue!  Sunday was our first full day at the beach and right on time in the morning, our tent and chairs were delivered and set up!  Best money we ever spent.  Gulf Shores has a policy that nothing can be left overnight on the beach, so we would have to set up/take down each day.  We decided to pay someone else to do that for us and it was AMAZING.  Thank goodness because otherwise the appeal of packing up/setting up/etc to go to the beach would be a lot less enticing...

Elizabeth thought to bring walkie talkies to communicate with people at the house - fantastic idea, but the kids ended up bogarting them...

Julia applied her own sunscreen this day...  haha

 Lia, Erin and Julia LOVED playing in the waves.  We insisted they wear their floats b/c the waves were pretty strong sometimes, but they had an absolute ball.  Halle, on the other hand... not as interested.  

She still had a great time, but once she saw someone get washed up by a wave...  that was it...  not interested.

This play by play of Erin getting soaked is hilarious...

And Lia just laughs... 

Halle was done with the waves and Lia wanted to walk down the beach with us.  We happened upon a guy blowing these HUGE bubbles.  Awesome find!

 I switched out camera duties with Tyler so I could actually appear in the photos and show that I was, indeed, on this vacation...  ;)

After this wave, we went and got floats and I headed out with Halle.  Halle had a great time if she was in someone's arms, but was super freaked when she was by herself.  Totally get it - those waves are HUGE when you are only 40 inches tall.

These pictures are some of my favorites from the trip.

You could see tons of fish swimming in the water around your legs in the water and in the waves when they crested.  Todd was so excited to go fishing and went to get his pole and gear.  Unbeknownst to him, this would be the biggest fish he caught all week...  (I guess those fish just aren't hungry???)

Poor Carter was sick during the beginning of the trip, so he was a little less than interested in taking pictures.

Preston was all about the snacks... all the time.

 

 Lia asked GG to go play in the waves with her and GG happily obliged.  They had a great time running away from all these big waves!

We finally headed in to take a break, have some naps (adults and kids included!) and chill out in the pool for awhile.

Carter had major popsicle mouth!

 The kids went to bed early and SUPER easily given all the crazy activities of the day.  The adults hung out for a bit, but turned in early as well.  Beach life doesn't lend itself well to late nights - everyone is too tired!

The next day was my birthday and I had three requests for the day:  Sleep in, go out for ice cream, and have a pina colada.  I awoke to sweet cards from all the kiddos.

Todd topped off my requests with TRADITION!  Ice cream cake!!!  

No one was really interested in eating ice cream for breakfast, so off to the pool we went!

I bought everyone these underwater cases for cell phones with the hope we could get some cool underwater pictures.  These are super fun, but almost all of them turned out blurry.  Hard to get sharp focus through a plastic case while underwater, I assume.

For my birthday, Todd got my new lenses for my camera.  I was excited to try them out!  Got some great shots of the kiddos.

Halle was missing from all of these pictures because she was down at the beach with Todd and Tyler playing in the sand while they fished.  She could be heard frequently through the "rocky talkie" saying "HI MOM!!  I LOVE YOU!!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!!!"  It was 50 shades of adorable people.  :)

After a break and some naps, we headed to ice cream!

I did end up getting a pina colada, but we aren't sure if they actually put any alcohol in them...  I'll have to find some other ones to satisfy that craving.   After happy hour we headed back home to MORE ICE CREAM!  haha

The night ended with a super fun walk on the beach.

It was a great birthday!  

Last installment of beach fun upcoming!