Our Trip to the Beach

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OK, here's hoping this posts. I have been having quite the technical difficulties today and am sick of fighting with my computer. Santa, are you listening? Perhaps I need a new one or an upgrade to this one! *wink, wink* The day after Thanksgiving, we loaded up our leftovers (and our children) and finally took advantage of how close we are to some awesome beaches. The one we chose for this trip was Dauphin Island, Alabama. Oh, it was fun! It was by far the most relaxing and enjoyable thing we've done in a long time. The island is small, quite undeveloped, and very slow paced. There are three condo buildings on the island and we rented a two bedroom condo for our stay. There is only one motel on the island and it's not even on the beach front. So, our stay was very laid back. It was cold the days we were there, but a cold day at the beach beats no day at the beach at all, that's for sure! We spent our time going back and forth from the beach to the condo and that's about it. We did a whole lot of nothing and it was WONDERFUL! Here are a few (ok, who am I kidding, more like a million) pictures of our trip. I took a zillion and then had a heck of a time trying to decide which ones to post, so you're getting a lot. And I mean, gosh, don't all people love pictures of my kids as much as I do???!!! :) I guess I'll use the excuse that Grandma requested them? *wink* So here I am, inundating you with many a photo from the beach!
When we arrived on the island, it was dark so, as you can imagine, Tyler was THRILLED to wake up and find this out our balcony. Nothing better than being able to see the ocean from your living room! He could see shrimping boats in the distance, and talk about fascinating!
Another shot of our view.
We did a lot of hanging out in the condo as pictured above. :)
And onto the many photos of playing in the sand...
Keep in mind it was pretty chilly, hence the jeans, hoodies, and boots!
Tyler had been waiting a good six months (literally) to get those beach toys out to a REAL beach and play. So worth the $.98 I paid for them as they entertained for HOURS.

Tyler thought that laying down in the sand was SUPER FUN until...

...he realized it meant that you quickly got sand in your mouth.
Sam spent much of his time at the beach like this. Either wrapped up in blankets or slung over one of our shoulders. The sound of the water instantly put him to sleep. (OK, and remember how I said we spent a whole lot of time doing nothing? Please excuse the not-make-up-hair-not-done look I'm sporting. Didn't have the slightest desire to fix myself up while we were there!) Oh yes, and we all proudly donned our BYU apparel that weekend as it was a great weekend to be a Cougar. Yes, you all know what I'm talking about! We went to eat that night at Barnacle Bill's (one of two restaurants on the island) and felt very out of place as we were wearing our BYU garb and everyone there was wearing either their Alabama or Auburn clothing as it was "their" rivalry going on that night and they had it on the big screens. Out of place or not, though, we were proud to be wearing BYU blue that day.
And it seems this boy has an obsession for sticks lately. Another thing to entertain him for hours.
And just when we figured out that the stick was perfect for spelling names in the sand, it started to rain. Darn! Tyler is totally into letters and learning how to spell things right now, so he was thrilled that we could 'draw' letters in the sand and kept asking me to draw one for Daddy, one for Sammy, one for Mommy, etc, etc...
And I'm glad I remembered my tripod and remote for my camera if for nothing more than one shot of us all together. Because there was not another soul to be seen on the beach, so there wouldn't have been anyone around to take our photo. So we took one ourselves. And there you have it. We had a great time and are already vowing that we WILL indeed go back (maybe when it's a tad warmer). We loved our time at the beach on a cold weekend in November!