we made it to the beach!

i have been feeling sort of bummed to not make it to a beach (any beach) this year. but then a friend of manning's invited us to join us at her grandparents' lake house about an hour away. yay!

it was such a relaxing way to spend the day. the kids all had a blast and the moms were able to chat and sun.

maddux and his best pre-school buddy who will go to a different school this year.

it's not anything close to the ocean but the wake from the boats made little 'waves' and i got to burry my toes in the sand. love.

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.

spring break - coats on the beach

another exciting part of the hotel for the kids? cable! we don't have cable at home and they get pretty excited to watch disney junior. (the pictures show part of the reason we don't have cable.)

it was a gorgeous morning! our plan was to eat breakfast and swim in the hotel's indoor pool while we waited for the day to warm up a little.

i'll just say that we got our money's worth out of that hotel breakfast. and then we went down to the heated pool for about an hour. i didn't get any pictures, but there was a small waterfall and the kids had fun swimming around.

then we bundled up. and we did not have enough clothes at all! as a last minute addition i had thrown in our puffer vests, but we needed puffer coats! and hats. and gloves. we were very much underdressed for the weather. while there was not a cloud in the sky, it was 34 with 10-20 mph winds!

glamour girl pose before we hit the beach

it was cold, but there was a co-ed flag football league playing on three 'fields'. i thought it was pretty cool.

manning couldn't make it up the huge pile of sand yesterday, but this was just his speed.

daddy thought it would be a good idea for the kids to run from the waves. we just ended up with a lot of wet shoes.

it looks beautiful, but it was freezing! (which is why it was empty.)

one of my favorites of our photographer

it wasn't too cold for frozen yogurt though! it is hard to ignore it when you pass four, yes, four, of your kids' favorite frozen yogurt stores on the short walk back to the hotel.

we went in to warm up (and nap a little) before braving the cold again to play on the beach playground.

a family picture before heading to dinner

it might not have been warm, but being oceanfront was delightful. especially after i discovered the extra blanket and brought it outside with me while i read and listened to the waves. it helped when my little lap warmer came out too.

it would have been nice to get a little sun or to have played in the sand, but this view made it perfect. love.

spring break - arriving in virginia beach

we made it to the beach! when we picked a destination, all i wanted was a beach and matt wanted to not have to drive too far. virginia beach it is. this is our first family vacation in five years and we were all pretty excited about it! our plan was to arrive around lunch time and go to the virginia zoo, but traffic came to a stop at least four times due to accidents and construction delaying us from arriving until almost dinner time. we didn't get to the zoo, but we got to the beach before the sun went down. my loving husband sprung for the beach view, which was extremely appreciated!

it was colder than we had anticipated so we bundled up and walked down the beach for some dinner.

isn't this awesome?! madelyn and mason were the only kids willing to pose for  a picture.

kids from our balcony

this is the reason maddux is our official photographer. anyone who can make us look this good after 12 hours in the car is highly skilled.

beach champions

and this might be the kids' favorite part of traveling - hotel beds. especially when they can all snuggle up together. good night. love.