a warm beach

the kids were exhausted and all four kids fell asleep on the long ride out to captiva island - a very, very rare happening. i think all the fun is catching up with them at this point.

since the last beach we took them to was freezing (spring break to virginia beach), we wanted to show them that the beach can be fun. they had a great time playing in the waves, sand and looking for shells. big pop and grandma have a great shell scoop which came in very useful. the tide was coming in and the shelling wasn't great - much to my dismay.

all of my beach boys

manning took to finding the largest shells he could.

first maddux liked the sand...

manning didn't trust the waves and felt much better holding big pop's hands while the waves buried his feet with the coquinas.

...and then he wanted nothing to do with it!

maddux and daddy worked out a compromise for the sand.

manning took the shelling into his own hands when we stopped scooping.

a shell castle by madelyn

the sun was taking a little too long to set so we opted for ice cream at dairy queen - an island must.

maddux' entire ice cream cone fell on the ground just after these pictures. for some reason he wanted to take the paper wrapper off of his cone before he ate down that far. and this might be the slowest 'fast food' restaurant - ever. and the line was now outside the building. he was not getting another one. our sweet mason offered him the rest of his. and after a lot of crying, maddux accepted the offer.

it was a great way to end our day. love.