Day 5
Thursday, our beach day started out like this:
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| #peaceful |
Nate wanted to get buried in the sand, and soon Abby & Anderson followed suit! #monkeyseemonkeydo
Poppy is the King of Kites, and has passed his love for them onto the grandkids. They had so much fun flying the kites & running in circles like little puppies!
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| Love Poppy cheering them on here |
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| Mommy helped them build a "village" |
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| Abby loves to take selfies! Or just be in pictures in general :) |
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| Gibson was snoozing on the front porch and Abby just had to have this picture of him! |
One of my Dad's cousins that owns the house, Andy, came for a visit Thursday evening with his girlfriend. It was so good to catch up with Andy, meet Dede, and grub on some yummy appetizers!! #pepperonistick
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| During Andy's visit, I found Nate under the dining table, reading a book to Anderson :) |
Day 6
Aunt Lora looooves playing the lottery, so we started off Friday right....with scratch-tickets! Abby is the luckiest.person.ever and usually wins at least $5, but not this time! Anderson won $10 though :)
Abby was pretty jealous that Nate got to take a special bike ride with Daddy, so Nanny offered to take her on their own ride. Greg & Poppy were concerned that Nanny didn't know how to ride a bike - they were being pretty ridiculous actually! - but Nanny & Abby survived their ride & had a great time.
Uncle John wasn't supposed to arrive until Friday afternoon, but he surprised everyone and arrived around 10 pm on Thursday night! He jumped in with the kids right away, playing in the ocean and building sandcastle villages.
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| Hammock fun! |
As I mentioned in my previous post, my sisters & I take turns cooking dinner each night. Friday night was Bec & Mike's turn, and they offered to tackle a new meal we'd all been wanting to try for awhile....a low-country boil!! Words can't describe how yummy this was. It will definitely be a new tradition!
We wanted to attempt family pictures, while we had EVERYONE there! We tried this two years ago (without John), but we did it in the morning and the sun was in everyone's eyes. This time, we opted for 7 pm and I think it turned out much better! Bec got some shirts/dresses made for the kids, and so we went with a blue / white / khaki color scheme to match with them.
We told the kids if they behaved during the "photo shoot," that they could get in the water afterwards. My sweet, rule-following Nate said "But Mommy, I didn't bring my bathing suit!" He could.not.believe I was allowing him to get in the water with his clothes on! Ha! Needless to say, they had an absolute blast swimming in their clothes. It might have been the highlight for me, watching the looks of pure joy on their faces :)
Day 7
These two were our early risers each morning. They slept in the same room with Nate, but had a hard time settling down at night, and not talking too loud in the morning. (Nate likes to sleep in!) There is only one TV, so the adults always watch The Today Show in the morning. Since it was the last day, we let Abby play her kindle, and I think she is showing Anderson how to play Minecraft here :) You're welcome, Bec!!
Uncle John / aka Pippy / aka Pocahontas decided to get a little crazy on our last day with some braided pigtails. Nate was very confused, ha! But Abby loved helping Aunt Lora play beauty parlor; she even let Uncle John use her detangler!!
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| Bec's usual spot - under the canopy, with the baby! |
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| My favorites! |
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| John & Poppy were so good with Nate in the water, and played with him non-stop. |
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| He asked if he could sit & read next to me :) #meltme |
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| Anderson likes to be in charge....and this day, he deemed "Abby on shovel duty, and Poppy on bucket duty!" |
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| Nanny's fancy new sunglasses, thanks to Lora! |
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| Surfer dude! |
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| She made her own tidal pool :) |
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| Sister time in the afternoon! With beverages, of course ;) |
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| Nanny loves to get the kids matching shirts / outfits each year! |
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| Poppy loves poppers, and so do the kids! (And please notice Abby's ruby red shoes - she found them in the dress-up box and wore them every second we were not at the beach. Like, seriously, she would have slept in them if I would have let her!) |
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| Lora & John were in charge of dinner Saturday - steak night - and used Anderson's TMNT walkie talkies to communicate while John was downstairs grilling :) |
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| Becky got a (hilarious) cake to celebrate our July & August birthday boys! |
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| #glowparty #clothesoptional |
This is always a special trip for us every summer. (Why else would we drive 10+ hours to the beach when we have one that is 5 hours closer!?) But it was especially memorable this year because my whole family was able to come & stay the whole week!
It was a week full of laughter, memories, drinks, yummy food, yelling, joking, time-outs, golf cart rides, cuddling, playing, and fun.
