Florida!!

The day after school got out, we went to Florida to visit Madgie and Patch at their beach condo.  After a fun, but hectic, last few days of school, it felt good to relax at the condo with this view out the back porch...

And the kids loved playing in the sand.

And spelling out words with the seaweed.

Best to wear shades to protect our eyes!

And we got to hang out with Patch!

And build sand castles.

My beach bunnies!

Working together to build something great!

Plenty of running on the beach!

And playing in the ocean.  Ben mastered the boogie board.

While the girls ran in and out of the waves.

This is the way Abbey liked to use the boogie board!

Then Matthew woke up from his nap and came down for his first trip to the beach!

Having the pool right there was great too!  It helped change up the pace for the kids and dipping in the pool after being at the beach always feels so refreshing.

We spent most of every day down at the beach.

We also found some really cool shells, like this one Ben found and then drew a picture of to remember it!

Matthew testing out the ocean.  He didn't cry, he didn't laugh, he just kind of was ambivalent about it.

I was hoping for some sort of fun reaction.  I remember when the other kids first tested out the ocean and found it funny or seemed to enjoy it.  Matthew just seemed like he didn't care one way or the other about being put in the ocean.  Maybe he was still waking up a bit.

Same thing when Daddy tried.

He was tired though, so maybe he just needed a cuddle.

Abbey trying to surf on the boogie board!

Lots and lots of beach fun!