Beach Break

Ready for a wild and crazy Spring Break at the beach! Whoohoo, Spring Break 2014!

We headed to Seaside, Florida for a change of beach scenery. Max's class has been studying different states, so he was on the lookout for license plates from other places. His workbook about the states from Mimi was the perfect activity to hold his attention during the long drive! 

Who doesn't love a house the same color as the ocean?

So excited to be back at the beach!

Dance of Joy

Game On.

The kids were thrilled by the room with bunk beds and begged to sleep together. What we learned during the week was they have very different sleep routines. Although the kids go to bed at the same time each night (around 7-7:30), Max falls asleep immediately while Sarah sings. And talks. And gets up to read books. In the morning, Max wakes up early while Sarah continues to sleep. These differences were compounded by the time change to the Central time zone and the location of the Master bedroom on a different floor. Sarah woke up in the middle of the first night, wandered out, and was trying to open the door the balcony while Max called for me upstairs. Thus, despite the fact that the house had four bedrooms, Mommy ended up sleeping on the couch to keep an ear out for the wayward children.

There was a lot of tv time during our "early" mornings.

Luckily, there was plenty to occupy them during the day!

Toes in the sand

Digger, our faithful beach companion

Sometimes I think our kids would be happy if we filled the backyard with sand and just piped in the sound of the ocean.

Frisbee champion

Ready to surf

Nah, the water's too cold.

Let's jump instead!

We tried to take some beach pics s on our way to dinner while we were all clean:

This is what our posed "beach pictures" usually turn out like:

The delicious homemade ice cream made up for the picture fail.

Peace

The kids associate beach time with Daddy time, which means I actually got a few minutes to relax in the sun!

Little Sister enjoyed burying her brother a little too much!

Important reading

Pool time!

Octopus for dinner! The giggly baby kind.

Back to the beach for some serious digging.

Check out this fort!

Reinforcing the walls

It was THIS BIG!

"The ocean is coming! It's trying to get us!"

"You will not win, Ocean! You will never beat us!

Charge!"

Trying to tame the waves in a different way

Flamingo at the beach

Fun family day!

After days of beautiful beach weather, the storms and the cold rolled in. 

We drove across the Emerald Coast to cheek out a local science museum with lots of hands-on activities.

The skeleton riding a bicycle was both creepy and fascinating.

Learning about momentum

We spent the afternoon in the town of Seaside exploring the local shops

and local flavors!

Max and I weren't able to do our traditional beach sunrise because the sun doesn't rise over the beach! So we settled for sunset on the balcony to say goodbye to the beach instead.

Goodnight, beach!

Until next time.