At the Beach

Robert has an annual golf trip in Myrtle Beach with some guy friends.  This year the kids and I hitched a ride with him and dropped us off at Ocean Isle Beach.  We had a short vaca with Mary and her kids (Jimmy went golfing with Rob) and stayed at Mary's parents' house on the second row.  We arrived late Wednesday night so we had 3 full days of just the moms and kids at the beach!  

It actually went very smooth all things considered.  Mary and I greased up the kids, packed the wagon up and got to the beach by around 10:30 am both Thursday and Friday.  The big kids could have splashed around all day, but the one year olds were done after and hour and we pushed it to 1.5 hours.  Then we would go in for lunch and a long nap and finish the day around the pool. 

It was a fun trip - hopefully daddy will let us do it again next year :)   

We made it!

Easton and Avery dancing in the water

 Carter's favorite thing to do on the beach - eat snacks!

 We got seashells!

Tea party at the pool with Ellie

Carter and Ellie looking for the garbage truck one morning

The shirt says it all - "Big trouble in a little shirt"

One morning Mary's parents set up a "treasure hunt" for the big kids

Mary's mom took Avery out for some boogie board practice

One evening, we bravely loaded all the kids in the minivan and went out for dinner!  Mary and I joked about how much going out to dinner at the beach has changed since our high school days.  We left the house at 4:45 pm with no shower or make up on and 4 kids in a van.  Change is good :)

All aboard!

Mary's mom bought the kids matching OIB shirts at the local souvenir store

 Group shot at the restaurant on the marina

Carter was having NO part of the kids only group shot

The kids were so well behaved at dinner so we stopped on the way home for Sunset Slush at the OIB pier.  It's good stuff.

Watching their nightly cartoons on the iPad.

Avery reading a story to Easton before nap time

Weekend Adventures

This past weekend, we once again took tto the road to visit Mary and Jimmy's new house in Greenville.  They live right next to a great park, so we took the kids there for some fun after naptime.  Those 2 specs off in the distance are Avery and Easton running around like crazy people.

Easton has this great sled that works on grass as well as snow, so we all took turns going down a big hill.  The kids went together first.

 And did a great job working together to carry it back up the hill.

 Mary and Avery.  I think Avery convinced everyone to take her at least twice.

 
Videos!!!

 Ellie and Carter were having a great conversation while the bigger kids were sliding.

 Once we got back to the house, the smaller kids played downstairs while the big kids had a blast in Easton's play room.  Ellie has her cheese face down pat.  Carter was having a blast playing with all the new toys and learned a few new tricks from Ellie.  Pretty much as soon as we got back from Greenville he figured out the whole crawling thing (video coming).

 Ellie was a great host as long as you kept Carter arms length away from her.  Here she is sharing toys.