Day 10: Beach!

And what a gorgeous beach day it was - perfect weather, not crowded, clean, and with great company - perfect! We brought lots of food and stayed longer than we intended, then stopped for ice cream on the way home.

A cute start to the morning.

Uncle Leo is in college so he doesn't get to spend as much time with us, but he loves his nieces and nephew. I spotted him outside on the trampoline, holding Theo and gently bouncing to soothe him.

Girls playing happily together. It lasted almost an hour and deserves a blog post, celebration, trumpets, etc

Everyone playing together while the adults pack.

Leo watching over the girls.

Babies zonked on the ride to the beach.

A candid shot of David Aldridge.

"Silly Daddy!"

Avy rocking the beach babe look.

Ellie jumped right into the sand castle building.

A triumphant Lily after having slaughtered Daddy.

And Theo's just his happy normal self.

This was how Avy spent the day.

Goofball.

Lily finally left the corpse of Daddy and went to play in the sand.

Going into the water! Ellie was trepidatious initially but was running in and rolling in the waves by the end of the day.

Mmmm, sandy crackers.

Babies zonked out to a cool breeze and the white noise of the waves.

Our friend Heather, her mother Camille and her daughter Delilah joined us too!

Avy is designing whole cities now.

A candid shot of the wild Lily.

All the kids enjoyed the day, but I think Lily got the most out of it over all. It was hilarious to watch her decide You guys are boring, I'm going this way and take off crawling without a backwards glance. She did this into the waves too - at one point she crawled to the waves, and a wave stopped right before her. So she crawled forward and another wave stopped right before her. So she crawled forward again and a wave hit her in the face. She gave it the most disgusted how dare you face, sat up, splashed a bit, then would have continued crawling forward more but Momma decided to intercede. Nothing stopped her - not sand, not cold water, not distance from parents. She had a blast.

Dave is holding Theo, who would cling to him whenever a wave came up. Lily is off adventuring with Philip playing guard dog.

Momma and Daddy taking a cuddle moment in the water where kids can't follow them! ...that or Daddy's holding Momma in place for a big wave. Hard to tell.

Where'd Ellie go?