Playing Doctor

 This little cutie changed herself into scrubs and did exams on all of us, including Pawpaw and Manah, with her little stethoscope. It was so precious!

 

Happy Birthday, Austin!

 We came back from our trip just in time to celebrate Austin's birthday. We had a nice low-key celebration including some special meals and desserts. We tried a tiramisu from a new place since our old favorite Italian place closed.

Beach Time!

 We took a family trip to the beach as a last hurrah of summer before school starts. We arrived Monday evening and had dinner out on the deck.

Then we couldn't resist a quick walk to the beach before bedtime.

The next morning, waiting for the big kids to wake up.

"See the line where the sky meets the sea. It calls me..." We were singing Moana songs a lot!

My beach babe :)

Hit the waves!

After a quick boogie boarding refresher lesson, Sebastian was riding waves with the best of them all day. He looked like such a little beach dude with his dark skin! But alas, the jellyfish were out. We had lots of tiny stings, but then he got a really bad one and was scared to go out the rest of the time!

No fear here, this girl is all in!

Speaking of all in, she also readily volunteered to be buried in the sand.

Mariana and Stephen were determined to build some sand castles.

In the afternoons we came in for Cecilia's nap and some time out of the sun. Anastasia and I worked this flip flop puzzle together.

The older kids kept hiding away in the big girls' room to watch Avitar.

 

 

This beach ball was tons of fun, especially for Cecilia. But it also turned out to be quite a babysitting job since the wind kept blowing it away. After we all got a good run in chasing it, we decided to deflate it and leave it at the beach house!

Since our house had a fire pit, we decided to do a cookout one night and smores for dessert. Mmm!

 The older crew was going out to the 3rd sandbar to catch the better waves. Austin also started catching hermit crabs which became a favorite passtime of the younger gang.

Cecilia made a sweet little friend one evening. This was the only contact we really had with anyone. The beach was so uncrowded, it was wonderful.

Manah and Pawpaw drove up for the day on Thursday. Cecilia was so surprised to see them.

 They convinced us to go into town for dinner.We couldn't resist a trip to the big candy store. The girls also wanted to visit the pier that had big carnival rides, but it turned out to be insanely expensive, so we opted for just a photo.

!

And we rode the ferry!

Hermit crabs...I think they counted 17.

Farewell to the coast!