More Beach Photos

So here's another long post full of beach pictures. I can't help myself - I love the beach and all the sentimental feelings that go along with it for me. I have always loved beach vacations with my family, starting with the first one on my third birthday. I have a bit of the post-beach letdown now... which has been normal for me since I was a pre-teen. I always get sad and sentimental about having to leave the beach. I've been coping by just getting back to normal at home and listening to my Florida Songs (originally recorded off the radio when I was that aforementioned pre-teen, and now all burned onto CDs - back when Napster was still free and legal, that is).

So, to take you through the photos here are some more sentimental 80s "Florida songs" (okay, so that Rick Astley song was really from 1991... and it is still stuck in my head, by the way, and I'm not annoyed by that fact yet, either). Unfortunately, the version I had to use of the first song is not able to be embedded here... but I *have* to use that version; it's the one with the seagulls and ocean sounds. So, you can open the link in another tab and let it play in the background while you come back to this page and look at the photos... if you'd like to, that is. But I dare you to listen to it while looking at photos (or not looking at them) and not cry. Or maybe you can and I am just a sentimental sap. This song has always made me tear up with sentimentality about the beach. I even composed my own music video for it with footage and photos (which mostly exist in my mind, as does the music video itself, ha ha) from my childhood beach vacations. Okay, so the video is actually written down on a piece of paper from when I was 12 and it is in a folder in a closet somewhere...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUb_3Ynz_tk

And after that, here's another sappy song about sentimentality and the beach (at least, it is for me):

The girls show off their seals - I bought them each a seal at the Dollar Spot in Target as a treat for this trip. The seals enjoyed swimming in the ocean and pool very much!

This was not a good day for beach balls... too windy! The people who owned the townhouse/condo/whatever you want to call it had a bunch of beach stuff available, including this beach ball - a very nice perk. We used their beach chairs, water toys, towels, boogie boards, and the cart to haul it all down to the beach and back!

The girls work on a sand castle we built the day before - just above the high tide mark, apparently.

Cecilia slides down a pile of sand and into the water of the "seal pool" that we built.

The girls play in their seal pool. We dug it a little above where the tide was coming up to, and then by the time we were about to head in from the shore, the tide was coming up to the pool and filling it up (and washing it away, much to Caroline's dismay). At one point, Caroline was asking me if I'd fill up a bucket with water and add it to the seal pool, and at that very moment, the tide reached the pool and filled it up. God heard you, Caroline!

No, Caroline's face is not visible in many of these pics, but the hat kept her face well protected from the sun! She's young enough that she doesn't care if she looks geeky - and the white-faced sunscreen look didn't help with that, but I thought the little ghosty children were cute, myself.

A break from the sun... I was so glad that my grandparents could come stay with us for a day! Cecilia enjoyed having Great-Grandaddy read her a book.

Spinning around and around...

Caroline and Daddy fly her kite on a windy morning at the beach. Tim had fun flying it, too.

And Cecilia had fun watching the kite.

Uncle Tim digs out another seal pool while Cecilia wanders toward me.

Caroline running somewhere... can't remember why.

The seal pool shortly before it washed away.

I love chubby baby feet on the sand!!

I have photos of Caroline holding this same beach bag at about the same age on her first trip to the beach.

Cecilia doing her favorite activity - swimming! "Seemeeng! Pooo! Kick kick!"

Look Ma, no hands! No adult hands on the baby, that is. Of course one of us was standing just out of the frame.

Caroline playing in the pool, still looking rather ghostly in the face.

Cecilia gets ready to jump

Such a happy look as she hits the water!

One... two...

...three!!!

This was Cecilia's most favorite thing to do. She even flopped in by herself without holding my hands a few times! She can't yet jump with both feet coming off the ground together, so she couldn't actually jump in, but she wasn't afraid to just lean and fall toward me! Other things she loved were swimming around in the wings and doing "Motorboat" with me and Gramma.

Cecilia snuggling with Leila... this was right after she woke from a nap and had ventured outside, only to find new visitors. So she was being shy...

The morning that we had to leave... we went out on the sand for some family photos.

And that brings out beach trip to a close, sadly. I still have photos from the fort and the cathedral and Our Lady of La Leche shrine to post (they are all uploaded but I need to type the text). But "this is it" (as Huey Lewis and the News say in their 80s song!) for the actual beach and pool photos.

We were so blessed to be able to go to the beach for the second year in a row! My parents took us both times - thanks, Mom and Dad! Now I just need to convince the whole family to make a trip back to Angler's Cove, my childhood beach destination!

It was great being at the beach with all of my brothers at one time, even if it was only for two days that all of us were there at the same time. I can't wait to make beach trips in the future with extended family... cousins playing together in the sand, making their own sentimental memories! I hope they are as good for my children as my own memories are for me!