Beach Babes

Our boys are lucky enough to have two great sets of grandparents, and one of us those sets live at the beach! (some might say they live on cruiseships, given the number of cruises they do in a given year, but that's another blog post). Many, many a year ago Keith proposed to me during a 4th of July weekend visit to Navarre, so we've tried to go back to visit most Independence Day weekends. Last year we were just a tiny bit busy with two hollering reflux-having babies, so we did not make it to the beach, but this year, we went! It was the boys' first beach trip, and it was a huge success. No one screamed and threw themselves about at the feel of sand or salty water on their skin. (I'm not saying the weekend was free of temper tantrums, I'm just saying they didn't happen at the beach).

The boys loved going into the water at the beach. LOVED IT! Dada was always up for a venture into the waves, but Momma had to pass the duties on to Grampie once the waves started to get a little bigger than she is tall. It's hard for a shortie to stay upright in the waves when you're topheavy while holding Big Baby, ya know? Gran had all sorts of toys for the boys to play with both at the beach and at home, and best of all, she had some tasty beach snacks* Cole liked pretty much all the toys but Grady oddly gravitated towards an old flip-lid basket of Gran's. The basket is magical-you put things in it and close the lid. Then you take things out, and close the lid. Then you open the lid, put things in, close the lid. Then you open the lid, take things out, close the lid. On and on. It's such good fun.

Our good friends (and cute newlyweds) Mr. Andrew & Ms. Hela were also in Navarre visiting Andrew's parents, so they met up with us at the beach and later at the pool. Speaking of pool, the neighborhood pool was another big hit! Cole floated about with Mr. Andrew and Gran, and a bit with Dada. That kid knows how to relax, and was right at home floating weightlessly in the water. Grady liked the water, but not as much as pushing the plastic chairs around the pool. We like to think he's practicing the football sled drill, a baby-pool-esque version of this:

All in all it was a great weekend visiting with Gran GG & Grampie. We can't wait to go back. Pictures of everything I talked about above are at our BabiesSquared Picture Site. Click and scroll to Beach Trip 09. Enjoy!

*The boys want to know who decides on the serving size for those snacks. The container said something like 7 servings per container, and they finished that container within a few hours. Maybe the serving size is based on teeny little babies, and not Big Boys. Big Boys can eat!