Beach Vacation, 2016

This year's beach trip was much like my failed picture above, blurry. Ok, not really, but I  liked that little trick. It was our busiest vacation yet. 

Our vacation was nearly three months ago, but I looked through the pictures tonight and it reminded me that I never did a blogpost for my future self to remember. 

We just found out that we were expecting our fourth child, Ridge was barely mobile, and Burl got several rashes from the ocean floor, stung by something, and a horrible ear infection. It wasn't the worst vacation scenario, but it had us chanting two things. John and I kept saying, "next year we're going to need one of those boxes for the top of the car," and "we're bringing a babysitter with us next year." We were trapped between big kid world and baby world. We wanted to do all the naps and chase all the dolphins, but ALL and vacation don't go well together with 3.5 kids in tow. 

Thankfully, John and I were able to laugh at it all (for the most part). We've been on enough vacations together to know that expectations will make or break a trip. Specifically, lowered expectations make for a better trip, and that's what we did. And we always had fun snacks on hand!

This is how the week went: there was usually one adult and child on the beach, another inside watching TV, and one child sleeping. 

Mama took pictures the whole time. 

By the time that we left, the kids decided that they like camping better. "There's so much more to do when we're camping," then they went on to list all the things to do camping. It was much more endearing than it was whiny. They were kind about it, and I don't mind hearing about it because camping is WAY CHEAPER. WAY!

On our last day, we packed the car, locked the condo, and went for one last goodbye photo session. We left it all on the beach, but still had enough to smile. It was a privilege to take another family trip to the beach and put a deposit in the [memory] bank of good times. 

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