Sand and Sun. Yes. Please.

I don't think I will ever go to the beach again without taking a picture of them from behind while they look over the ocean.

Andrew building sand animals with the kids.

"Jumping the waves!"

"Dump Sand."

She loves being in the water.

He loves running from the water.

More wave jumping.

We had matching toes for the trip. 

Andrew got the kite to fly again and the kids had a lot of fun with that.

I can't believe she's almost 5.

John is showing me that he has sand on his tongue. 

And he's almost 2.

And he still loves to be a ham at 3 1/2. 

Hanging out in the chairs that Grandpa and Grandma brought down from the cottage.
By this time, the tide was coming in quickly and we had to move everything 3 times back before we left for lunch.

I do love a good day at the beach.

This is the first time in 5 years that we have gone to a beach without a baby. Last time, John was still little, but walking at least. We had such a fun time playing with the kids. I looked over to see a tiny tent housing a small baby in a play chair and thought, wow, it wasn't that long ago really. Amazing what a year can do. The house we were at was so close to the ocean and had an outdoor shower with warm water. That was a life saver. No one ever went inside all sandy. Genius. One of my favorite things about the water was John constantly, and I mean constantly saying, "Rocks in the wa-dder, rocks in the wa-dder..." He loves throwing anything, but if it splashes, that is a major bonus. Peter and Ella brought home quite the collection of those very rocks too.