A Trip They Won't Forget

Go to the beach, come home with a cat.  Wait, what?!  It seems we can't manage to have a simple trip to the beach without a story to go along with it, so here it goes....

Awesome gramma gets us sweet condo for free right on the bay that goes out to the ocean.   Awesome grandpa babysits youngest with gramma for two nights, teaches him how to do obsessive yard work.  Living the good life watching Looney Toons.

So it was a liiiitle gray the first night we got there.  Joey's out there somewhere, can you find him?

Same first gray night, before ian and i came down to join them, joe and joey stumbled across this glass float behind a log on the beach.  My hubby's so cute, he kept it in his jacket, told me he wanted to show me something, then re-hid it in the same spot that he found it when i wasn't looking so i could see it in its original spot.  It had a sticker on it saying "Finders Keepers" and to call a phone # to register it.  

We'd heard of this before but didn't know exactly how it all worked.  Joey and i saw this poster the next day from 2010.

From October to the end of May, they put out 2012 of these glass floats at random places all along the 7 1/2 miles of beach over the course of those 7 months.  And we just happen to find one on the last weekend, how cool is that?!  Joe felt kinda bad that we hadn't called to register ours on monday when we saw people poking around with sticks looking behind logs and in grassy areas.  They might have been told that one was hidden on our beach that hadn't yet been found, oops! :-)

Here's our 12 year old...

Oh phewww! he's still five and goofy

Cute pajama boy

I had visions/fantasy of a sweet peaceful weekend of no demanding, howling baby around to manage, but reality quickly smacked me as the same drama of two brothers carried on while there.  Oliver does add a whole other dimension of noise, as well as trouble for Ian who can't keep his hands off him, just in the same as Joey feels the incessant need to poke his middle brother.  One less is a noticeable difference though, and i got to spend some great time with Joey on the second day.  While Ian took a good nap with Daddy, my oldest and i walked the town, got ice cream, visited the glass blowing shop to see some action, and drove to the next little town to check out some gift shops and locate our restaurant for dinner.  It always amazes me how different each child is when we have them alone, it's like they become another person.  There's no competition, no whining, arguing; just sweet peace, a slow pace, and one on one conversations.  Our favorite finds(besides ice cream) were the crazy big parrot that we almost walked into because we were busy looking at all the things on the wall, and the $26 angry birds hats. (black one not shown) :-)  

Someone had left a super cool fort they had built that the boys had fun playing under.  That's the place we stayed at in the back.

Finding balance, harder than it looks!

So I'm trying to finish this post but just found out that the disposable waterproof camera we took to Great Wolf Lodge this weekend didn't work.  We took some of the CUTEST PICTURES IN THE WORLD, and i have nothing!  Excuse me while i have a little sob fest.

K- I'm done.  On with the beach trip.  Hopefully some videos will cheer me up. :-)

Joey's loving the water, Ian's freaking out  and wanting to go back.  Apparently the little clam and shrimp holes in the sand are just terrifying.

                                      

Joey obviously showing much more compassion than me telling ian we could walk back if he wanted to.

                                      

Ian's a happy camper in the shallow water away from the holes.