Beachy

On our way to the beach, Bethany made a profound statement...you need a vacation after the vacation.  How true that is today as I'm unpacking suitcase after suitcase, shaking the sand out of everything we own, and rewashing clothes that I'd already washed in our condo because I'm OCD like that. We had a fabulous time of relaxation at the beach which is always good for the soul.  Short of J running over Bebby's poor little toes with the car, it all went off without a hitch.  However, all of us (with the exception of Towns) are major homebodies.  After a few nights away we were all ready to be home sweet home.  As we pulled back into Decatur I felt like Bethany felt after she was gone so long for cheer camp...the girl rolled down the window and said she wanted to breathe in the Decatur air.  I was feeling it this time around!  I say that jokingly, but at the end of the day as much as I love a good family vacation there's nothing better than being at home with your favorite people!

We left last Sunday morning at the crack of dawn to watch my dad's baseball team play for the American Legion state championship in Troy.  They've played in the same game lots of times, but we've yet to be at one they've won.  Until this year!  Ironically, they played Decatur's Legion team.  It was rather odd sitting on the other side of the stands, but once the game got underway I didn't give it another thought.  Decatur might be our home, but Dothan Post 12 is our heart...

My dad got soaked with 5 gallons of ice cold water...

I would have gladly taken it for him because I'm pretty sure I've never been that hot in my life.  I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else in the world, though!

Pawpaw with his girls and the championship trophy...

Bebs this one is for you...

I shall not say why, but the deuce is loose!

I love this one...

Doing an interview with the scoreboard in the background.  He makes me proud!

We spent the night with him that night, and come Monday morning it was a good feeling to only have a little over an hour's drive to finally see the ocean.  After grabbing lunch beach side, we planted ourselves in the sand for the rest of the afternoon.  Literally...

I didn't get a good picture of it, but they were all about me transforming them into mermaids with long tails.  Jonathan loves the beach, so he took charge of everything while B and I caught up on our reading...

Our usual routine consisted of a few hours at the pool once we'd had all we could take of the beach.  By late afternoon the kids were exhausted but we braved it and went to dinner anyway.  When you have 5 people with different opinions on restaurants it can really get heated and ugly.  J vowed to stop at the first place we came to which looked like a hole in the wall.  I wasn't so sure about ol' Billy's but it was divine!  A beach trip wouldn't be complete without go carts, and this is the first year Towns has been tall enough to drive by herself...

 We were basically her pit crew (or cheering section?) and yelled the entire time she was driving.  Everything from "you better not let that girl in the orange car smoke you" and "get that boy, you can get him in the corner of that turn"...you name it, we yelled it.  We're not competitive at all.  Towns was so wrapped up in trying to come in first that she totally blew past the teenage boy telling her to pull over because her time was up.  He got mad at her, she ended up crying, and Jonathan might or might not have handed the guy his rear end!

The next morning we left our cold hotel room to head to the beach.  That didn't do much for my lens...

I couldn't get rid of the moisture on it, but those three are pretty cute...foggy lens or not!

Remember when I said J takes charge at the beach?  It's his forte...

And I let him have at it...he's the biggest kid of 'em all!

We hit the kiddy pool after lunch where the girls looked like they were scheming something up...

 Towns ended up feeling like she was too old for it.  She decided she was more into In Style...

And Katie Holmes - can't say that I blame her!

 
Cate stuck to the butterfly slide...

If it looks like she's about to climb to the top where she's not supposed to be, it's because she was.  All the while she was telling me that's not what she was planning on doing.  Once we were completely water logged, I talked the girls into a wardrobe change for a photo session...

Bethany skipped the beach on our last day thanks to the toe incident, bless her heart.  I spent the whole time in the ocean teaching the girls how to jump waves...

They decided they'd much rather ride the waves on floats, though!

Cate pretended like this massive sea horse was her pet...

She pulled it around and had long conversations with it in true Buggy fashion.  Meanwhile Towns and I went on a hunt for treasures...

We ended up finding a cute little crab that the girls named Crabilicious.  J and I had a feeling it wouldn't make it too long if we took it along, but there was no getting out of it.  So we put the salt water crab in a make shift fresh water home complete with a little sand and some shells...

Cate was excited to show Bebby what we'd found when we brought it back from the beach...

She perched herself up on that counter and wouldn't move for love nor money.  She was very much into having a new pet which is why it was nothing but crocodile tears when the crab was a goner after six hours or so.  I felt really guilty about taking that little thing away from its home after that.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and night at Pier Park...

I have to show you an up close shot of B so you can enjoy those little hooty hoots hanging from her ears as much as I do...

She'll be lucky if those things don't go missing!

We just so happened to see Towns' not-so-secret crush Brooks and his family.  I know I've talked about Brooks before and how he's the cutest Post 12 bat boy I've ever seen.  The two have always been sweet on each other, but this is what happens when you want to take a picture of them together...

They make Cate get in between them and then act like they don't know each other.  Too funny!  That's the sweetest, most polite, most precious kid I've ever met.  We couldn't believe we ran into them...such a fun treat!  I could have put him in my purse and brought him home with me.  He's that adorable.

After dinner that night, the girls decided they wanted to jump on the feather bandwagon...

Their friends Mary Bibb and Virginia sparked their interest, and they couldn't pass up the opportunity to be twins...

 

Bless you if you're still with me.  That officially wraps it up!  T-minus one week until school starts for Bethany and Towns. Towns just found out that she got the teacher she secretly wanted, and Bethany got the form in the mail to register for a parking spot at DHS. It's all happening so fast and I want to slow it down. 

Heaven help us...