Santa Rosa Review - Day 6

We were nearing the end of our trip on Thursday (boo!) and we hadn't really explored anywhere yet.  Jared suggested taking the kids to Seaside.  It was a beautiful little town right on the ocean that really looked like it was straight out of the movies, and it was only ten minutes away.

We walked around for a few minutes and a nice man offered to take a picture of our family...

then we took a little break from the sun under the shade.

Even the beaches in Seaside were picturesque. 
I was excited to see the Texas flag being flown there, too!

After checking things out, we walked over to Fired Up to see what souvenir we would like to make.  They have so many options--plates, platters, jewelry boxes, piggy banks--but we finally settled on ornaments.  Each kid got to pick out a base color and decorate them as they wished.  In between each coat of paint, we had to blow it dry, so it was a bit of a tedious process, especially with 3 excited kids!

But we made it!  Lila's hand was the only one small enough to fit on the ornament, so she got to put her handprint on it.  So cool!  The other ones got to paint their fingers and used their fingerprints to make crabs and fish, which also looked really cute. 

That afternoon we were joined by Jackson's baseball coach and his family, who just happened to also be in Florida the same week as us.  Jackson really enjoyed having Caden and his little brother there to help even out the girl to boy ratio.  They played lots of catch in the ocean...

worked on the sand for a while...

and just ran around being silly willies.  He loved it!

I spent a good portion of the afternoon getting a special skin treatment by Lila.  She rubbed sand all over me and was so meticulous about it.

Even though the sand was a little rough, how can you not love all of the attention from this sweet girl?

Since we were running out of time for our much talked about family beach pictures, we decided to just do it.  It was so hard to leave the beach early, though! Our condo got showered and dressed in matching colors and went back to the beach for a photo session.  Hopefully the pictures with me and Jared in them look as good as this one:)

We cooked dinner again in the condo that night and then took Jackson and Lila to get ice cream--Maddie stayed behind so that she could watch a movie.  
J dove right in, headfirst!

It was such a fun way to end another day of our vacation. Only one more day left.

Santa Rosa Review - Day 5

We got off to a very early start on Wednesday morning.  Jared, Jackson, Lyndsie, Scott, Maria and Andrew all got up at 4:30am to go deep sea fishing with Price and Travis.  The girls and I tried to sleep in a little bit later, but then headed down for our morning run on the beach around 8am.

I hope they will always be so sweet with one another.

Right when we got down there, big storm clouds began to roll in.  It wasn't 10 minutes before it began to rain...

so we ran upstairs and watched the showers from our balcony.

It was over pretty quickly, so we went back down soon thereafter.  We found a big bird feather and used the end of it to write messages in the sand.  Madison wrote her name all by herself!

We love Florida!

Even though it wasn't storming anymore, the waves were still pretty fierce.  It just raised the level of excitement for these two girlies!  They would run away from the crashing waves...

and then right back into them, loving every minute of it.

While the girls were having a ball, the boys were struggling a little bit.  Seems as though the storms were hitting much harder out in the gulf.  They did catch a lot of fish, though, and everyone said that Jackson was such a trooper.

Daddy even caught three red snappers!

Since it was the wrong month, though, they didn't get to bring any of the snapper home with them.

The highlight of the day, I heard, was when a shark grabbed a hold of Price's snapper.  Apparantly it held on for a while, bending the fishing pole a whole lot and running the line back under the boat.  Thank goodness no one went overboard!

Texas Fishing Crew and the catch of the day

Meanwhile, the girlies were all having a ball relaxing in the summer sun.

Lila and Claire had fun running in the sand...

and my girls even took time to give me a sweet hug.

After the fishermen got back that afternoon, Daddy helped Madison fly another kite...

and we got to hear all about their adventures on the high seas!

We were having such a good time that we stayed until the sun was almost gone. 

After dinner, we met back up to go crabbing on the beach.  We probably did it 4 nights while we were there and it was one of the kids' favorite activities.  Look at all of their gear!  Flashlights, nets and even a headlamp for Maddie.

Lila liked the idea of crab hunting, but she was really more of a spectator than an active participant.

"Crab alert! Crab alert!" Whenever the kids would spot a crab, they would all yell this and run towards it.  There would then be a race to see which one would scoop it up in their hand and put it in the blue bucket.

They caught many, many little crabs, and Daddy even caught one big one with his net that was still in the ocean.

Check out this big daddy crab!

Stay tuned for the rest of the week...

Santa Rosa Review - Day 4

Tuesday was another beautiful day and the girls were all smiles from the minute we got down to the ocean.

Two sassy mamas!

They loved running to and from the ocean...

and had fun making new friends, too.

Jackson and Daddo played more catch out in the water...

while Lila worked hard burying us both in sand.  When she was all done she looked at me and said, "Now we can escape?!"  I think she liked piling the sand on, but enjoyed getting out of it even more. 

Since the kids spent a good amount of energy trying to jump the waves, I thought it would be fun to try and capture it.  Turns out, that's easier said than done!  This is the best we got. Looks like Jackson should have been on his dad's side since the kid is almost as tall as me.  Oh well.  It does capture their love for the water, which was immense!

The Hays Crew--one day there will be even more rugrats running around!

Until that happens, though, we will take advantage of date night and the babysitting services offered by the aunts and uncles.  We really enjoyed our dinner and time together--that's something we don't quite get enough of anymore.  Thanks, y'all:)

Santa Rosa Review--Day 3

Monday morning we had a few showers, but very soon after the clouds moved out and the sun moved in.

One word--gorgeous!

While Madison, Lila and I took a little trip to Walmart (somehow we left Maddie's swimsuits in Texas), the other kids spent time in the pool outside our condo.  Teagan played water basketball with Jackson...

while Taylor and Daddy supervised the munchkins.  I guess the little guy overexerted himself during the water obstacle course because a few minutes later he was yaking all over the pool deck.  He came upstairs, had some tylenol b/c he was running a fever, took a good nap and was much better after he woke up.  No more fever the rest of the trip--hallelujah!  He was even ready for the beach that afternoon.  Such a trooper.

  I didn't match our swimsuits on purpose, but it did make for a cute picture, I think. 
The Hays girls love us some turquoise!

Miss Thang checking out the water temp.  Her assessment?  Positively perfect.

We spent time just chatting about the ocean...

and then were joined by Maria, Andrew, Scott and Lyndsie.

Later that afternoon I hopped on the towel for a pic with my sister-in-laws.  Let's get real, though.  There was really never laying out to be done by me!  Way too many kids to keep head counts on and such:)

Yay for our group photo!!  It was a treat to have our whole crew out there at the same time.  We usually met up around 4:00 every afternoon.  All the kids were done napping and the parents were ready to mix and mingle.  I miss this already!

Captain Price bought this boat and the kids loved it.  They went for many a ride in the wide open ocean.

Lila was not quite ready for the high seas. 
She was very content to sit in this sandy hole and watch from  the shore.

Our second beach day was a big success.  We ended it by going to dinner with the whole crew--yes, all 17 of us dined out.  It was an experience, especially with tired kiddos, but we made it!