The Beach

It's starting to seem like all we do is go on vacation! I swear most of the time we're boring homebodies immersed in chores, work and the daily grind. There have just been several "too good to pass up" opportunities this year. The latest was a week in the Outer Banks of NC with our 4 best friends and a house right on the water. The 6 of us have done everything together the last three years except go on vacation so who could pass that up!

I am posting these in no particular order since blogger and me have issues with posting pictures. One of these days I'll figure out how to cut and paste them in the order I actually want but until then....

This is the view off our back deck, and the beach was that secluded almost all the time. We were really lucky to have the last house on the street with an abandoned golf course on the other side so we really enjoyed the "private beach".

The nice thing about being that close to the water was coming back to the house for naps while everyone else could stay out. Well that and getting to snuggle and fall asleep to the sound of the waves.

Addy and Aunt Kristen, the worst spoiler of the bunch :)

Most of the week saw Addy in nothing but a diaper and a head full of tousled beach hair. It's a good look for her!

Loving the sand.

The funny thing is we put her down on the sand the night we got there and she screamed bloody murder. But then for the rest of the week we couldn't keep her out of it. A lot of us got a mouthful of sand thanks to Addy's exuberant throwing and a good stiff wind.

Playing with Uncle Lance...

And then crawling like heck when a wave would come in.

By the end of the week she was letting waves wash up to her neck and over her head a couple of times but that first day she was pretty cautious.

The first morning she was so excited she threw herself off our bed and got a wicked rug burn by her eye. That was actually the first of three times that she jumped off the bed. Some people just never learn

Her favorite place in the world. Anything is better if you're on Daddy's shoulders

You cannot imagine how many shots I had to take before I got one of her wearing sunglasses. She can whip those things off her head faster than you can say "take the picture"

Uncle JJ cheesing

Daddy looking stern and failing miserably

Mommy and Addy. You can tell who the picture taker in our relationship is since this is one of perhaps 12 of the two of us.

Such a beach bum

I just fell in love with her beach hair.

Daddy and Uncle Lance cheesing as well. Sadly a whole week away and no pictures of Aunt Jess. I don't know how that happened since she's normally more than happy to pose for a picture. I promise she was there and even uttered the funniest line of the week

"I hate the kite, the kite is dead to me now" And trust me, she meant it :)

Daddy and Uncle Lance buried and then made a sand car around Addy. You can kind of see one of the "wheels" in this picture. It was quite creative but Addy was "helping" so it lost it's car shape pretty quickly

Taking a walk and no one to disturb us as far as the eye can see.

It's incredibly hard to sit back and let your kids eat it in front of you. I know it's part of the whole parenting process, and letting them figure things out for themselves but still. Thankfully I think she learned her lesson about crawling full speed down a slight incline.

And she's a tough kid. After we washed all the sand out of her mouth and ear she was raring to go again

Who needs toys when you have Uncle JJ's blackberry?

One last "cheesing it" picture of Addy, Daddy and Aunt Kristen in the car.

I wish we had gotten a picture of everyone together but it's tough to get three couples and a toddler to stay in the same place long enough much less find someone brave enough to suffer the 37 false starts while one or all of us makes a goofy face. One of these days we'll grow up but not anytime soon

As always you can see a lot more pictures if you click on the link "Ayden's Pictures" I just didn't feel like captioning 15 pictures of Addy throwing sand, no matter how cute they all were.