The Beach, Part Two

The next few days at the beach were more of the same bliss. We would head out early in the am to play.

Here are Daddy and B in their matching sun shirts. I have these for all of us now and they are so awesome. It keeps you active for hours without reapplying sunscreen all day! It is so much easier to just put it on arms and faces!

A note about Bennett's pink hat. It was obviously the girls' and it is the best hat ever. It sticks to his head. He never messes with it and it is SPF. I have looked for others, even on Ebay and they just don't sell these hats anymore. So, since he doesn't care, he is wearing it this year!

This day we were working on a sea turtle sand sculpture. Topsail is the Sea Turtle Sanctuary point for North Carolina so they are the mascot of the island.

Bennett loved to sit in the break and let the waves crash on him. He would just squeal!

Pretty much Carly and Ellison didn't have the desire to work on the turtle. Joiner stayed with Margaret the whole morning to get it just right. It was really beautiful. She put shells for nails and then drew this beautiful pattern on the shell. If you look at the bottom you will see she signed her masterpiece.

The Townsends left on Tuesday about lunchtime. Here is the rest of the gang enjoying a nice lunch on the upper deck.

The other boys!

Leah left their kite. Here are Andy and the girls trying to get it in the air.

Bruce brought his truck and our bikes. We had to drive a short way to get to the bike path with the girls. These beach roads are too narrow to try to ride on without the path.

Bruce carrying the bikes across the street to the path. Margaret taking the girls.

The sunset over the sound

Bennett enjoying his evening stroll with Margaret and I.

Carly cruising by.

Joiner was nervous at first, but here she is flying by with Bruce in the background.

I think this picture is so funny. I wasn't taking a picture of this runner, but when I looked back at them, here is this guy and it looks like we are all watching him. I think we were actually looking back at Andy or Bruce.

The next day digging in the sand

How sweet....all playing together in their pink hats!

Now a disclaimer on this picture. By Wednesday, the humidity was about as high as it can get without raining. I have curly hair and I have all these little "baby bangs" from having Bennett. The result of all these forces is some pretty fierce hair, I will admit. When Andy was looking through the pictures, he started cracking up. When I went to see why, I realized it was my hair. Well, I can't help it, so here it is!

With Joiner and B

Letting the water crash on us.

Mom and Dad came around 4 on Wednesday. Here is the new crew enjoying our dinner.

We went for a walk after dinner. B with Gigi. The wind was really rough as you can see by both their hair.

The walkers

Somehow Bennett was on the sand again!

This was a really cool "drip" sand castle. It was very elaborate.

Mommy, Carly, and Bennett walking

The next morning when I was running, the ocean was literally full of fishing boats. When I finished, I came back in to take a picture, but many had already moved inland.

Gigi, Joiner, and Bennett up with the sun.

You can see by this picture that the humidity has come out. I think this is Joiner and Gigi sitting in chairs right at the surf.

Bennett loved the low beach chairs. He would just climb in and then sit down and grin at you.

Carly

Running off to sit with Grumpa and Joiner

Gigi and Bennett

Bennett helping me sweep up all the sand in the kitchen

Coming to get me. If you follow the blog, you know this happens any time I try to get a picture of him.

As I mentioned earlier, Topsail is a turtle sanctuary. There is a turtle hospital on the South end of the island. We left Grumpa with Bennett napping on Thursday and headed over to check it out. Well, so did the rest of the island. The line was around the building. We decided to forgo that for this day and went shopping instead. The girls each had their money from allowance saved. They both got turtle rings and then Joiner also got a fishing net. She had wanted one since the beginning of the trip. We headed over the the tip of the sound to let he try it out. There were actually a lot of little fish in the water, but she didn't catch any. With Carly and Gigi "fishing"

Daddy giving it a try. It really did look so easy, yet so hard:)

More to come!