Karly turns 7 at the beach!

Happy Birthday Karly!  She is a mini version of my sister, Audra!  We were so happy to be a part of her birthday.

 Austin found a perfect shark's tooth!  Wowzer!!!!

 

 

 This slide was so much fun!!  I told Seth one afternoon, "let's just go put the kids in the bed and come back out and do this slide over and over!"

 

 

By the end of the week, everyone had gotten a lot of sun.  But we had so much fun and I think we could have all stayed another week.

Sunset at the Beach

We love walking on the beach, when the sun is going down.  The kids found a really deep trench that someone had worked really hard on.  They spent a good 45 minutes playing house in that trench, Karly and Savannah did splits in the sand, We let the water rush over our toes, and Laurel left her name in the sand.

Seriously, one of my favorite places to be!

My sister took her family out on the beach one evening to take family pictures.  I wish I had mustered up the energy to put my family together for a photo shoot on the beach.  But I didn't have it in me that night to bribe two little, worn out boys.  So while mom and dad were taking these awesome pictures of them, we went and got everyone ice cream!  Yep, you see where our priorities were!

Yeah, I was regretting it.  I love the one with them all jumping up in the air.  I love how she took the ones with mom and dad. Priceless!

Beach Trip

School ended and summer began right away.  My sister, Audra and her husband, Linn and their four children, Tyler (17), Austin (13), Kayla (9), and Karly (7) came to visit.  They brought my mom and dad with them!  And oh yeah, Tyler brought a friend, Brody (17).  We had a house full I'm telling you!  It had been a couple of years since I had seen Tyler and Austin and I could not believe the grown young men they had become.  They had deep, men voices and stubble on their faces.

We all hung out here at the house for a couple of days before we headed to Orange Beach, where Audra and Linn had rented a four bedroom, spacious Condo for all of us to enjoy for a week.  A week!  We haven't spent a week at the beach since, well, since I can remember.  It was heaven on earth!  The first night we got there, there was a storm brewing in the gulf and the winds were going crazy.  It made for lots of great pictures on the deck.

The rest of the week was beautiful.  The condo had a lazy river, a really cool slide, and a couple of pools so we had plenty of entertainment.  It was just a very fun, relaxing week.  Lots of pictures were taken, but here are a few of my favorites!

Let's see, where was everyone's comfort level with the ocean?  Laurel and Savannah loved being in the water.  Laurel got really good at riding the waves.  Austin was everyone's entertainer.  Savannah loved being thrown up in the air and landing in the water.  Landon, not very comfortable with the ocean water this time.  He wouldn't venture out very far.  Him and I hung out together in the sand.  He loved dragging the board through the water and he drove the dump truck all around.  Sawyer loved being in the water.  The water and the sun wore him out.  It was great having mom and dad, who aren't really beach loving, in the middle of the hot day, people.  They would stay indoors and listen out for Sawyer when he went down for a nap.