I go to water

Beach Week!  It's over officially tomorrow, but Alaina and I have been collecting and selecting our best photos for 24 hours now, and I think we are finally done.

First, let's talk about how the kids feel about the beach.  Stephanie: Best playground ever!  Gwendolyn: Most interesting thing ever!

Actually, Stephanie's first impression when standing on the balcony of the condo and seeing the beach for the first time was to yell, "There's a pool!"  And, don't get me wrong, the pool has been great, but she quickly learned the ocean was even better.

First time EVER in the ocean!

She really likes to hang out just on the shoreline and look.

We spent each day pretty much the same.  Wake up, kids demand to be outside (Gwen would say "I go to water" first thing every morning while dangling from the doorknob of the condo), spend mornings and afternoons in the ocean and on the sand and the evenings in the pool.  The condo itself? - small but beachfront, and frankly- who needs big if you can live outside?

Stephanie made a few friends, but none better than this guy, who was really into hunting for things in the ocean.  In fact, we met them because he came rushing over to give her a freshly caught sand crab, which just won her over.  Many fish and hermit crabs later, and these two were inseparable.  His grandma owns a condo in the building we were in, and they were just an incredibly sweet family, or as Alaina would prefer to call them, the future in-laws.

One of my major goals was to find a perfect, full shell.  I found one, but some mollusk already lived in the shell... Bummer, but I enjoyed keeping my mollusk friend in a bucket of water and sand and watching him (her?  hard to say, I guess) burrow. 

And what kind of beach trip is it without a little putt-putt.  Kevin and Stephanie squeezed it in on our last night. 

Overall, the beach was so great for the family, and it will be hard to leave tomorrow.  But at least it is a mere 3 hour drive now, and we can enjoy this several times a year.