First days at the beach

Yesterday marked exactly one week since Seth and I got married. The whole week I have been thinking like..this time last week I was..and filling in the blank. So back to reality it is, no beach, no waves, no all day to chill-everyone is back to work and feeling the every day stresses that life always seems to bring. However, it is always exciting to look back on the pics and see what fun we were having and what a great experience it was to take Elem to the beach for the first time.

After a short drive to memphis and an even shorter flight from memphis to Panama City Beach, the vacation set in immediately. It was almost like the second I saw the beach even from the car, that I was relaxed and totally forgot about everything I had been stressing over back at home. It was wonderful. Dustin and I arrived together with the kiddies, and as we pulled into the driveway Seth, his mom and Dad and Ali-and all three of the dogs, waved top us from the street already decked out in beach attire and soakin up those rays. We unloaded the car, threw on the bathing suits and sunscreen and headed right out our back door onto the beach. Only hurdle for Elem and Cecilia on the way...THE SAND! Kinda hard for a 2 footer to get those knees up enough to walk through the sand without taking a face dive every few steps or so. But they made it and once we got down to the waves and tents it was all good from there.

Elems first view of the waves, and the sand under his feet. He thinks he likes it.


When you add a bucket of water to the view-its a whole new ball game!


Going on in to check out the big waves with a little help from daddy.


Cecilia joined us and was all about filling up those buckets too. They both really liked the waves and neither seemed to have much of a fear-as long as we were right there to catch em when they got slammed with a big one. :)


After about 30 minutes it was back up to the tents we had set up just a few feet away, to get some much needed chill time and play time! For some reason Elem has started this new thing where he always has his tongue out! ANd we do not know why. You will see throughout the course of the next few blogs the the tongue is everywhere!


Another new and exciting hit for beach week was the ice cubes out of the cooler! Little did we know that our babies had an obsession with eat them some ice. They loved it and just could not get enough of it! For the most part is worked out well, it kept them hydrated and happy, so we let them eat as much as they wanted. It was a good way to get them to last another 15 minutes or so and stay out of the direct sun-which of course we were all trying to soak up every second that we could get!


Cecilia was very serious about her ice, she wasnt playing around. I love how she has sand all over her legs and what not, and most likely all over the ice that she is eating too! They did not care at all how many times they dropped it into the sand, it was still good to them, so whatever!



Quick pick with mommy and daddy-as you can tell, Elem was so not trying to get his picture takin in wither of these-he was too excited about the waves and his ice.



We had soo much fun relaxing on the beach the first few days. We really spent the days getting up, playing with the kids, going to grab some waffle house and then heading back to get out on the beach. The house we staid in was great-only flaw was the lady who owned it's sense of style-or decorating sense rather! haha! And the fact that it was all tile and concrete. No carpet anywhere-which is a slight issue if you have 2 small 1 year olds walking (and tripping) all over the place. But we made it work, and there were no major injuries! By about 9 or 10am we were out on the beach with the babies-played for a while in the water and under the tent and then headed back up to the house for a quick lunch and nap for Elem and Cecilia. The first day they were totally on the same schedule and everything worked out perfectly-but after that-they didnt so much sleep at the same time anymore. So there was a lot of tip-toing around the house throughout the day, but again it worked out fine. There was also like a guest house connected to the beach house, so that gave us a few options as well as far as having somewhere else to go when the kids were trying to catch a nap. The whole patio was fenced in so the dogs could pretty much come and go as they pleased, and with the exception of sage escaping down to the beach and running like a mad dog to get to our tent, there were no problems with the doggies either! We had so much fun just relaxing and really not thinking about anything too strenuous for the few days before the wedding. Ill pick back up form there on the next post!