to the beach...TO THE BEACH!!!

I had a pretty normal summer until the end of the summer.  I went on 4 trips back to back and I had a blast!  So, now for some fun catching up!!  First, I went to Royse City to visit my family!  

Then, I went with my family friends to Corpus Christi!  This has been a tradition in my family to go almost every summer with the Westmorelands.  We almost always stayed at a place called the Gulf Stream Condos.  There's a lot of history there and really happy memories of my mom.  Judith, Susan, and I used to talk about bringing our husbands and our kids and how much fun it would be.  We also talked about buying our own condos so they would always be ours...that hasn't happened...yet!  Ryan had already experienced the "beach experience" with this group, but this would be different since there were two more guys coming along as well as two kids that would be with us.  We needed two condos to fit all of us, but boy did we have a great time!!  

After being around constant "help", I'm not sure Ryan and I will ever vacation with just us and our kids, well until they are older.  We really appreciated the added help!

We actually got there early, so our rooms weren't ready, but we found the gift shops!

Once our rooms were ready, we changed clothes and headed to the beach.  Cade had been talking about the beach for past month but he didn't actually know what it was.  This was Cade and Lyla's first time to see the beach.

 

First time on the beach!

Cade insisted on wearing his shoes, hat, and glasses..wonder why??

Setting up the cabana early in the morning.  I took this picture from our balcony! Our poor cabana that has been in the family for so many years was stolen.

happy girl!!!

of course we went to Snoopy's.  Our favorite seafood around.  Cade and Lyla both tried the boiled shrimp, but took after Ryan and wanted the fried shrimp!

Here's our group!  Susan, David, Cole, Ryan, Bob, Judith, Lyla, Johnny, Sharyn, Cade, and Jess

  

Next door to Snoopy's is Scoopy's Ice Cream.  Cade got some sherbert but decided to drink Ryan's milk shake instead.

Lyla with her favorite person (probably had something to do with the fact he gave her her first ice cream!)

Corpus can be pretty!

After Snoopy's I wanted to get some pictures of us in clothes on the beach.

That's about as still as I could get them!

We usually play frisbee and toss the football or softball around.  It's more fun when you have more people.  We played a pretty mean game of frisbee one afternoon!

Here's a picture of Susan, Judith, and I on one of our summer trips to the beach!  I love that I get to take my family to the same beach and create our own memories!

Ryan was only there for part of the time because he can't get time off from the Police Academy.   Cade really took after Ryan and enjoyed sitting on the sand or in the water, but not actually swimming in the water.  He built sand castles and then destroyed sand castles!

And, Lyla took after me!!! I love swimming in the ocean and so did Lyla!

Judith, Susan, and I swimming in the hotel pool!

Me and my family swimming in the same pool!!!

My dad loves frisbee!!!

Thanks Angela for the bikini!!!

brother hugs are the best!!!

One of my favorite pictures.  Lyla and I then my dad and Cade in the background!

The "almost married" couple!

Two of the best friends anyone could have!!! I thank God for ya'll!

 I hope to do this every year we go to the beach!  I hope to take our kids every year while they are young.  It's such a great adventure for them and an easy trip.   I would totally be okay with going several times in the summer.

Lyla's 1st Birthday Party!!

For Lyla's first birthday we had planned a swim party with ice cream!!  The weather man kept saying it was going to rain on the party day, but seriously I never thought twice about it actually raining!  It was AUGUST in Austin!  You're supposed to be able to have a swim party!  

BUT...It rained that morning and it was too much to risk getting rained on at the party.  So, we moved the party to our house.  If I had actually though ahead I would have come up with some activities for the kids to do, but again, I never thought it would rain!  That means there were lots of kids and adults just hanging out at our house.  I'm thankful for Cade's train table because that seemed to keep them entertained for a little while.  Not sure what the kids did the whole time though...ha!  Also, thankful for Ryan, Cole, and Judith who helped set up the party!  yea, I will repay the favor when y'all have kids!

I really enjoyed making all of the fun decorations for Lyla's party!! It's fun having a girl.  We had ice cream cupcakes and then ice cream sundaes with lots of toppings!

I made some "ice cream cone balloons" for decoration.  They didn't turn out as cute as I thought but the kids loved them!!  Cade's face is priceless here!

Ryan and Cole actually made the tutu skirt! 

Lyla enjoyed it!

Then liked their picnic on the kitchen floor!

Happy birthday song!!  not a fan of the hat!

At first Lyla didn't know what to think of her cake.   Cade showed her how to eat it without getting messy!

Our family..plus Harper :)  She fits right in!

she started to get the hang of the icing!

yup!!! That's my child!! 

 You have to watch the video of Lyla below...I can't believe how messy she got!

Presents!!

Birthday girl face!

She was overwhelmed and needed a hug from daddy!!  Such a girl!!  I love this picture!!