The beach 09 (revised)*

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(these guys are looking for actual crabs, and found a few. the scary gross kind. sandcrabs were soooo last year....)


at the beach this year I personally spent a lot of time watching this:


(Trying to keep miss A occupied in the shade, since she was a buck white infant)

And not a lot of this:

No, the Queen did not sleep well this trip. Not on the beach, or in her port o crib in the tent trailer.I got the bulk of my sleep between 6a.m. (when I handed her off to Wendell) and 8 a.m.

But I was at the beach! So who cares!

This is the kids' favorite vacation of the year. They like it even better than the beach house((MY personal favorite vacation of the year) because they get to actually live with almost all of their cousins instead of just a few. Kid. Heaven.



(Shh...the elusive 12 year old...very hard to capture in their natural habitat...)

(Kinsey, Dani, and Rachael)
If you're quiet you can sometimes sneak up behind them. Be careful they're a little skittish...

The kids are crazy little fish. most of the time the older ones just disappear and we hope the lifeguards on duty are paying attention. They take off on boogie boards,
skim boards,
(Chandler)
and surf boards (supervised on the surf board. Thanks Greg.)

If we are lucky we catch sight of them long enough to remind them to reapply sunscreen. This usually only happens when they come in for lunch. I love it. They wear themselves out. And we did the same thing when we were their age...


And sometimes even now. This year I spent a lot more time in the ocean than I usually do. Either the waves were particularly good this year, or I just didn't have a fantastic book to read...





We bring shovels, and are very serious about our digging endeavors. This fantastic three part tunnel kept the kids occupied for hours. You can see all three parts. Janee and Seaver coming out of the front. Kindyl and Tate coming out of the middle. And Mitchell's head popping out of the end. Then you can see Zan, Bren, and Dax waiting their turn to enter.




Our men are architectural geniuses...

(another view...Brenley coming out of the end.)

(Dave's brilliant sand sculptures not pictured. Sorry! )

As you may have noticed, we tend to have our babies in rounds. These are three of the 4 babies we had this year:


Delaney, Teichert, and Abigail. we are only missing Rylie. All beach babies, of course. Just like the rest of our kids. I am pretty sure it is genetic...



.
3 three year olds.(out of 6 or 7 in that particular round of babies. Depending on how you count it...) We find they are easier to keep an eye on if you keep them buried up to their waist....

And sometimes higher! (For more evidence, see blog header)

Kindyl, my blonde beach beauty.



The boy. Kind of a rare breed in my family...


They sometimes come in handy for things like helping dad pack up.



Look, more of them! Luckily there are at least a few boy cousins.


The sandy faced Queen with one of her most loyal subjects
And a sleeping Brenners on mom's lap


Holy picture overload! (No, I don't use slideshows. I don't know how. And I want to make a blog book one day...)

And there are even more. At the campground. Maybe on another post. I can't seem to locate them....
(Yes, I realize that by now you are only reading if you are related to my family, and weren't at the beach with us...)
(on a side note, thank you to my sisters Callie and Jannalee. I pilfered some of your pictures...)