TI 2013

 

Get ready for a million pictures!

That's right, last week was our annual (and much needed) trip to the beach!

We were so glad to have everyone join us this year! Both sets of our parents were there, plus Uncle Donovan and his girlfriend Addie, Auntie Michelle, the Nani, and my mom's brother, Michael.

 

Our first day at the beach we spotted lots of crabs crawling around! We tried really hard to catch one all week long, but were unsuccessful. Those crabs are fast!

 

We found lots of these shells on the beach. I call them butterfly wings, but I am sure that isn't their technical name. We also found thousands of live ones in the sand on the edge of the water. It always amazes me how they dig themselves into the sand when the water pulls back out to the ocean.

 

We saw one too many dead jellyfish that had washed up on the beach.

 

Luckily we never saw any live ones in the water. We did come across a fisherman down the beach who had caught a baby shark though! Yikes! 

 

Mimi had a lot more energy at the beach this year! And Michelle was able to join us for almost the whole time! 

 

David enjoyed being buried in the sand again. This time we brought a real shovel which made the task so much easier!

 

I allowed Finley to be buried as well, but only up to his waist. For some reason I am really afraid of people getting trapped or buried alive in the sand.

 

David and his parents, a.k.a. Abuelo and Grammie. 

 

Finley was so much braver in the water this year. The fact that the water was a little bit chilly didn't bother him at all. And he also liked going in deep! Deeper than I felt comfortable with.

 

On one of their long walks, Grammie & Abuelo came across some turtle tracks.

 

A sea turtle had come to shore and laid her eggs in the sand the night before. There were two women there digging up the eggs and moving them up higher on the beach to keep them safe.

 

They keep track of when the turtles lay their eggs, and then as the time for them to hatch draws nearer, they come to watch and wait. When they hatch the women make sure the turtles head towards the water and not towards houses. They also protect them from predators! I wish we could be there to see them hatch!

 

David and Donovan taught Finley how to play pool this year. He was almost tall enough to reach the table. :) He had to use a little stool to get up high enough to hit the balls.





 

The big shovel also came in handy when we built our massive sand castle.

 

Complete with a moat and a huge dribble castle in the middle. Finley said that the dribble castle looked like a volcano!

 

The grandmas looking good!

 

We decided to decorate the top of the volcano with dead crabs. You know, to warn all the other crabs to beware!

 

Nani and Finley enjoyed getting to spend some quality time together.

 

We played lots of bocci, but for some reason David and I struggled to win many games. I guess we didn't bring our A games to the beach.

 

The beautiful view from our deck.

 

On one of the windy days we broke out our little kite.

 

Finley had a good time flying it sooooo high!

 

Me and my mama!

 

We were able to get my dad down to the beach for a family game of soccer. We recruited a bunch of the neighbors to play with us too. It was a lot of fun, but we were all so sore the next day! One of our neighbors was a soccer coach from High Point. He seemed pretty excited when he found out who my dad was. :)

 

It got so windy towards the end of the week that our sand castle turned into ruins. It actually looked really cool.

 

Donovan and Addie decided it would be a good idea to start a 1000 piece puzzle. I was convinced that we wouldn't finish it. It was really hard! But we did! It was really addicting to work on. Once you started, it was hard to walk away.

 

Here is Finley being superman off of our bed. And the Nani playing pool! Who knew she was such a pool shark?!

 

My dad and Abuelo were pretty good at it too.

 

Thursday night/Friday morning brought some scary weather. We were woken up in the night by a terrible storm a.k.a. Tropical Storm Andrea. Then our phones started beeping and warning us about possible tornadoes in the area. With all the recent tornado drama we decided not to take any chances. We turned on the TV and kept a close eye on the storm. When our phones told us to take shelter now, we woke up the whole house and headed to the bottom floor. We decided if we started to hear a 'train' coming toward us we would stuff ourselves inside the elevator. Luckily only high winds and rain came our way. The next day was extremely windy and the waves were huge and super rough! I don't think these pictures quite do it justice.

 

There were just waves after waves coming so fast! Needless to say we weren't able to get into the water on our last day at the beach. :(

 

The water finally reached our sand castle and flattened it.

 

With the rough wind and waves we headed into town to visit the SHARK ATTACK beach store.

 

We did have one final nice walk on the beach together.

 

Here is almost all of the crew. We forgot to take a family picture while everyone was still there! This is who remained for the whole week! And, yes, I am closing my eyes in the picture. It was too bright!

 

We had such a great family vacation. We ate so much good food, stayed up way too late every night playing games, and cracked each other up on a regular basis. I love my family to pieces. Can we do this again soon?