J Cooper Photography

Oh, vacation.  Where have you gone?

Vacation for me is always a constant mental tug-of-war between “living in the moment” and “capturing every moment”.  I struggle with toting my camera around with me at all times in order to catch every little detail.  I really felt like I did a better job this year of just sitting back and soaking it in.  I mean…really.  I {only} took 744 pictures last week.  I was a regular couch potato…or beach potato…whatever.

I can pretty easily sum up the beach experience for each of my little people this year.  The girls were covered head to foot in sand.  They adored the beach with all the love their little hearts could hold.

Danny was a beach lover too.  Happy and content to sit in the sand and watch the world go by. {Or to just pass out on the nearest blanket}

Super Sam was disgusted with the very thought of the beach or anything water related.  He whined obnoxiously but was easily consoled with a bag full of crackers and his beach tent.

I have so many memories to share.  But let’s start out with a personal favorite from the trip.

After the first day of wild cousin play on the beach the girls were covered in sand.  My niece went back to her condo for a bit of lunch midway through the girls’ giant beach hole digging adventure.  While telling her Dad a story she got overly animated and started jumping up and down….at which point a large clump of “formed” sand fell from between her cheeks.  Pretty funny stuff.

The next day my other niece topped her sister’s story by retelling about her shower experience where she literally found a sea shell stuck between her butt cheeks.  REALLY funny stuff.  {Although my kids think any story with the word “butt” in it is a riot as they consider it a “bad” word in our house}.

The next day the beach digging adventure continued.  The crotch of the girls’ suits were nearly dragging on the ground with the insane amount of sand they had “collected” there.  They had it in their hair, ears, eyes, and plenty of other places!  That afternoon I had the girls undress in the shower and dump out their suits.  The Brainiac shimmied out of her bikini bottoms and out fell a big chunk of sand.  We laughed.  HA!  Those crazy sand clumps!  Then I noticed that that particular sand clump was actually MOVING.  My sweet little gal was harboring a sea creature (we never did figure out what it was officially…but think the size of a small hermit crab) between her pockets.  I was completely weirded out.  But that didn’t stop me from putting that little sea creature into a ziploc baggie so my daughter could run around the condo complex showing off her “butt trophy”.  I know.  Strange.  But in the moment….REALLY REALLY funny.

This year’s vacation included our {little} family of 6, my Mom and Dad (who make the trip annually with us), and The Writer’s family of 5.  It was a bit louder and more wild this year and I had my teen nieces to help with the boys!  The Librarian and family couldn’t come as they are mid adoption #2 and they were sorely missed!  We did the usually lounging on the beach, the aquarium, kite flying, and beach picture taking (somewhat disastrous for my little family).   All in all it was a crazy, exhausting, memory filled trip!

Super Sam decided on the last day that the sand was “safe”.  So maybe there’s hope for next year

I’ve got {just a few} more pictures to share

But they’ll have to wait for another day!!