there's still sand between our toes....

kristie and i and the kids just spent 5 wonderful days with kristi and family on the isle of palms, sc. (sigh). it was a great week. we stayed in the most adorable beach cottage, and we had beautiful weather the whole time. since i have always lived near the beach, i have had the luxury of spending a day at the beach whenever i wanted, but i've never stayed at a beach house. so this was quite a treat! what fun we had walking the kids down there in the morning and back after naps in the afternoon! and the best part is that there is no sand in my van!! (just 1,000 teddy grahams from our long drive home yesterday...) today, ethan told his nana, "we went to the beach over and over and over and over!" he's right! we did!

between the three mommies, we took over 1200 pictures and videos combined. i must admit, i most likely contributed over 80% of those pictures. kristie was the fun one, building sand castles with the kids... kristi was the very pregnant one, doing well just to make it down the path to the beach without going into labor... and i was the obnoxious one, snapping pictures of absolutely everything. so it's going to take me awhile to pare it down to my absolute favorites. but this picture is right there at the top. can you believe we got them all to sit down for this? we drew a line in the sand and told the older kids to sit. and they did! then we plopped the babies down, and i got this one shot before the youngest ones were on their way again. these days, a group picture of children is successful if you can see all the faces. they may not be looking and they may not be smiling, but we'll take it! :) i'm just glad i got it in one shot and not 50!

check back soon for tons of beach fun! thank you, kristi, for a week we will never forget!