Beach and Egg Dying

Today is Kate's "Special Day."   I love that name because she came up with it.  Today is the anniversary of the day Kate came home from China.  Will and Dave met Kate in China at the end of March but they arrived home and we became a family of five on April 4th, 2007!  We will spend some special time together as a family and I will post about it in a few days.  As I type this, Harry is outside playing basketball with his sister.  I never imagined the incredible bond those two would have.  They are best friends.  It is such a gift to see.

Anyway, over Spring Break we spent some time at the beach with our good friends but I never posted about it.

Kate and her friend, Layne.

They dig a big hole and pretend it is a foot spa.

Kate's bathing suit is from here.

Kate is so close to getting her aerial.  She has done a few but she often puts a hand down at the last second.  She loves to tumble around at the beach.

Harry spent his time skim boarding and fishing.

Due to circumstances, he was the only teenaged boy there but he had a blast nonetheless.

Kate did some skim boarding too.  I LOVE that Harry taught her how to do this last summer.

Drippy castles were built...











Here is Harry fishing...







Catch and release...



We also went to Galveston last weekend to visit Dave's sister who was in town.

We only went for a quick day trip but it was fun...



They fished off the dock and we went to the beach too.

Yesterday, we planned to dye eggs in the morning.  I have been having upper and middle back pain lately and then yesterday morning I started having chest pains.  I was lightheaded and did not feel right.  These are classic symptoms of a heart attack in women.  I got concerned so we went to the ER.  It was very scary but I they immediately got me an EKG and a chest X-ray.  I was treated very promptly.  They do not think it was a heart attack but something is going on in the left side where my heart is and around back too.  I am having some sort of spasms or inflammation.  I have another doctor appt on April 20th with a neuromuscular specialist.

We did end up dying eggs when I got home from the ER.





A very sweet instagram friend sent us the monogram egg kit.  I tried to find one here in town and could not find one, so she sent it to us.  It was so thoughtful of Rachel to send us one.











Even Will was home which is so rare these days!








They got quite creative with the eggs.

You might be able to tell from Harry's shirt that he chose a high school.
We are so happy he will get a Jesuit education too.


Happy Easter everyone!!

The teacher

Harry is great with Kate.**  He can be a bugger sometimes too--like yesterday when he told her we leave to go home tomorrow!

He teaches her a lot of things though and he is very patient while doing so.  Harry spends a lot of time on vacation skim boarding so Kate decided she wanted to learn how to skim board too.  It looks easy but trust me--it is NOT!  Dave, Will and I have tried it.  Since we value our limbs, we did not continue.

So, Dave, Harry and Kate went shopping for a beginning board for Kate.

Then, the other morning, Harry set out to teach Kate.



He was so incredibly patient.  He started at the most basic point --just getting her comfortable stepping on the board.  Then she practiced that for a looooong time.






Next, he just had her toss the board.  They just skimmed it back and forth to one another for another long bit of time.











Finally, she was ready to throw, run and jump on.  She had a few tumbles but she got the hang of it.  And now she and Harry spend hours at the little tide pool skim boarding.





And Kate is determined.  She is the only girl out there most of the time with a handful of boys.  She has made HUGE improvements.  And yesterday two 12 year old girls asked Kate to teach them how to skim board. And she did!!!


And here is a tiny bit of video from the afternoon of day one...






And now she is trying little tricks....








**I don't want to give the impression my kids are perfect or that they never fight.  I think they fight less than most kids but they do criticize and bicker sometimes too. They are very normal.

Little Traditions and dolphins

I am sure all families who vacation annually at the same location do this too.  But we have these little "traditions" at the beach.  There is a silly thing we cook for breakfast one morning (and we only do it at the beach).  There is a favorite restaurant or two we must visit each time (Cafe 30 A, Red Bar, Sugar Shak).  We almost always have pizza on the beach the last night. And then there is the ice cream truck.  The kids have always LOVED that the ice cream truck comes around our little beach neighborhood right after lunch.  In fact, this year, when Kate got some money from Mimi and Aunt Dooney for her birthday, the first thing she said was she would use it for the ice cream truck!

She "treated" her brother, Harry with some of her birthday $.

{It might seem silly to many of you but we don't have the ice cream truck in our neighborhood at home so this is a beach memory for my kiddos:)}

And even though we have a few things we do every year, I also like for us to try some new things on vacation.  This year, I booked a dolphin boat ride to Shell Island.  I used this company, and I requested Captain Brian because I had read excellent reviews on trip advisor.  Since there were 5 of us, we got a speed boat to ourselves which was really nice.  You go out on the boat looking for dolphin and once you find some, you jump in the ocean with them.  It is totally hit or miss though and you have to be prepared for that.  For the first hour, we did not see any dolphins at all. We saw tarpon and a sea turtle.  We snorkeled and went to Shell Island and got a few really cool shells. And even that was all really fun.

Look how gorgeous the water is here!!!

Then during the second hour, we saw dolphin.  Kate jumped in the water but the current was strong and it is hard to swim with the life vest on.  So, she did not get up close to the dolphins.  Will did though.  Harry almost did.  But then I got really seasick and it was time to go in.  These are not trained dolphins that people swim with at resorts or aquariums (which I am sure is really fun too).  These were wild dolphins in the ocean.  It was really cool.

Will got nice and close with this dolphin!

The dolphin in the last two photos above is "Chester."  He is a very playful dolphin that hangs out in a particular spot and we saw him swimming and playing with some other people close-by.  Will and Harry tried to get to him but they were caught in a bad current and could not move (between boat wakes and the waves).

If you are ever in the 30A area (or Panama City), I highly recommend this.  It was really fun.  And our Captain was great.  He tried really hard to make sure we all had a great experience.

After the dolphin ride, we had lunch in Panama City at a place on the beach.  Then we headed back to Seagrove and hit our beach....

Well Dave, Kate and I did.  The boys napped.

Dave and Kate dug a big hole...

Then Kate sat in the hole and made drippy castles....good times:)

Finally, Harry (and his sous chef, Kate) made us Harry's world famous quesadillas and guacamole for dinner.  We do not eat very healthy on vacation week;)

It was another great day.