Wanting to avoid beach traffic, we left the house pretty early Saturday morning. Any other year, Matt and I would have parked the car somewhere in Garden City and headed straight out onto the sand. This year however, we decided to wait until we had all of the umbrellas, sunscreen, towels, toys, etc. available to make Ava's first time on the beach enjoyable for everyone involved. So what did we do? Hung out at Matt's aunt and uncle's beach place until we could get into our rental. Cousins Anna, Owen and dog, Jaco, kept Ava entertained while we waited to head over to our beach house.
After getting into our beach house and settling in, it was time to go to dinner. We typically go out to dinner on the first and last night of our trip... all 19 of us! All other nights during the week are spent eating dinner around the dining room table. Each family is designated one night to cook from Sunday to Thursday. It's great. No expensive meals. No tips. No long wait times. Just good old home cookin', family, fellowship and... you're only responsible for dishes one night the entire trip! :)
Here are Matt and Ava waiting for our name to be called at Sarah J's on the first night of our trip.
Sunday morning we always attend The Garden City Chapel for church. This place has so many wonderful memories for Matt and his family. Matt grew up going to the chapel for summer camp as a kid. During college, he spent his summers working at the Chapel as a staffer with many of his life long friends. If you've ever been around Matt for an extended period of time, you have surely heard one of his "Chapel" stories. If not, just ask him to share any of the following stories the next time you see him: Firework, Vacuum, Throwing a Dart Through a Glass Window, Susie Getting Run Over By a Bus and many, many more! They are all hilarious!
Alright, now on to the main event... the beach! Here is Ava's first-ever photo on the beach. The expression on her face pretty much sums up the rest of our week!
Our typical days spent on the beach looked something like this:
Lounging in the sun.
Splashing in the waves.
Mommy and daughter soaking up the sun and taking in the beauty of God's creation.
Playing with cousin Anna.
Cruising down the beach. (Typically, Ava didn't last more than 5 minutes in this car. It almost always put her to sleep, which leads us to the next picture.)
Morning nap. (Matt and I were fully prepared to alternate nap duty and take Ava inside twice a day. Who needs to go inside when she was happy as a clam to take 2 wonderfully long naps each day on the beach?! Ava... You're awesome!
After napping, more sun-soaking.
Ava loved watching her older cousins Boogie-Board...
...And float around in this raft.
While the raft wasn't being used to surf through the waves, Ava and I filled it with water and used it as a make-shift pool.
More time cruising down the beach...
...Which lead to her afternoon nap.
Venturing out in the water.
We found/saw several sea creatures during the week, including this jellyfish. Other creatures that were not photographed: Dolphins, sting-rays, crabs, legless lizards and fish.
Matt and Uncle John's 5th annual Bocce Ball Tournament. In years past, the first person to win 10 games would be treated to dinner by the loser. This year due to time limitations, the tournament was cut from "first to 10" to "best out of 3." The reward was trimmed down from dinner, to a designer cookie. John, we're still waiting on our cookies!
After spending every possible minute on the beach, we found ourselves sun-kissed, salty, sticky, sunscreened, sweaty and sandy. I am sure stinky also fit into that list on more than one occasion. We'd clean ourselves up, enjoy a great family meal and then head out to the dock off the back of our house. One word. Beautiful.
Pretty great way to wrap up a day, don't you think?
Taking advantage of the gorgeous sunset with my gorgeous daughter and handsome hubby!
Lovin' on my girl.
Family sunset photo. Can you tell it was windy?
You can pretty much take all of the photos and happenings from above and repeat them everyday of our vacation. Not a bad way to spend a week! I loved being able to spend such quality time with both immediate and extended family. Most of all, I loved that Matt was able to spend an entire week without opening up his computer. He works so hard and he definitely deserved this much needed break!
There were of course plenty of other things that filled our time at the beach. One such thing was taking the kids to Family Kingdom to ride the rides! The older cousins enjoyed riding pretty much everything the park had to offer. Ava enjoyed the lights, sounds and culture (if you've been to Myrtle Beach, you know what I'm talking about) the park had to offer. While she was about 2 feet too short for most of the rides, she did manage to take a spin on the carousel! She loved it... Laughed, smiled and babbled the whole time.
Now that I think about it, she may have just been laughing at how ridiculous her dad looked riding the horse in front of her...
Those of you who know me well, know that I experienced 2 of the most emotionally challenging experiences of my life last year while at the beach. Both happened on the same day, within hours of each other. While I feel there is no need to re-hash any of the details of these events, I do feel it is necessary to give all of the glory and honor to God for bringing me through both situations. It is amazing to see what a difference a year can make. Matt and I both praise Him for His omniscience, omnipotence, grace, mercy and love. Thank you Lord, for the blessings in our lives. Thank you for sending your Son to die on the cross for our sins. Thank you for loving us enough to pay attention to the tiny, day to day details of our life... like blessing us with yet another wonderful family beach trip!
1 comment:
Looks like a wonderful trip!! Glad y'all had fun! You look beautiful and so does Ms. Ava!!
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