a mini vacation

Wow... neglect the blog much?? So I have A LOT of catching up to do. I guess I need to start with the present and work my way backwards a little... I guess this is going to work a little like my scrapbooking. I hope this goes better, I am WAY behind on the scrapbooks!

This past week we had the opportunity (thanks to my sister) to have a little R&R on the beach. Well I have to admit it was a little R&R but take out the R's. At least we were at the beach!! It is true, a bad day on the beach is better than a good day at home! Well there were no bad days, just not too much relaxing with the kids. I forgot to mention that Daddy was not there!

So... my sisters and I, along with 6 kids under 4, my nieces and my nephew were all at a beach house in SC. It was a lot of fun! The kids got a lot of time to play together, which does not happen often enough.

Here are a few pictures from the week...

How do you get a good picture of 3 kids???? YOU DON'T!! Here are the 3 big kids... K is the only grandchild in the group, the other 2 are great grands (and yes they are both older than K).

Here is R and B... R is the youngest of my parents grand kids and B is one of my parents great- grand sons!

Miss K is very hard to get a good picture of these days.. she never sits still enough (long enough).

Miss R always happy and enjoying (eating) the sand!

Here are 2 of my parents grandkids... the oldest (29) and the youngest (11months).

One night we had a pretty big storm and the next day this was on the beach. K was a little freaked out when she picked it up and it moved on her. We took a picture and let it go into the ocean.

Now we are back home and mentally preparing for another beach trip in a few weeks. This time Daddy will be there for at least part of the trip (whew)

The last few days...

The last few days at the beach were wonderful but may have been a little too quiet! Kennedi was running a fever for a few days. She cut a tooth while we were at the beach and was miserable. Even being miserable she was a trooper.

The water was warm and the sky was clear. The boys got to do a lot of skim boarding and some boogie boarding. I even got in the water a lot with them. One day it was pretty rough but the waves were fun. I was exhausted that evening! Summer of 08 I could not go in the water and have fun like I am used to doing. I was less than a month from my due date and I certainly did not want to give birth at the beach, let alone on the beach!

Kennedi is trying to tell me she is ready to start surfing.... I think I will make her wait a year or two.

Conner is having some sister time. Kennedi loves the time with her brothers.

My sister Barbie was able to have Kennedi sit still long enough to rock her to sleep on the beach. This is rare since Kennedi does not want to miss a thing!

My sisters and I took an evening and went down to the beach to take a few pictures together. Now I thought getting kids to cooperate long enough to get a good picture was hard. I think getting the three of us to have a decent picture taken was even worse! We had 3 cameras and ended up going down to the beach two different times only to find 2 or 3 pictures that were possibly decent enough to print out.

ok so this is not one of them.....

Here is just one of the might be a decent one. I personally did not like any of them but it pictures have inspired me to get my butt back into the gym!!!

With Kennedi having been sick the last few days I was really worried about the drive home. She was not the best traveller on the way up so I was sure we were in for a long ride on the way home. To my surprise, Kennedi was WONDERFUL! I may even have to say she was the best one of the three kids. OK, maybe not. The boys are great travelers and always have been.

I guess that wraps up the beach trip. It was uneventful in a good way! A relaxing almost two week trip that we already look forward to next year!

Just a few pictures from week 1.....

Since I have been so bad about update this past week I wanted to add some pictures. Chris had to go back to work today so last night we headed out for the 2 hour drive to the airport. I was so happy that I did not hit any traffic. The part I don't like is that as I was pulling into the driveway at the beach house I was getting a text from Chris saying that he had landed in Atlanta.

He has never been away from Kennedi this long but at least he has work to keep him busy... for the next 19 days straight... UGH!!

The boys are a little bummed since summer is just about over. When we get home they start school less than 2 weeks later. I think we need an extended summer... I am so not ready for the kids to go back. I really love having them home with me all day long. I think they are going to have trouble leaving Kennedi. It is unbelievable to see them with her and to see how much they adore her (and how much she loves them!!).

The first week we had 2 houses and they were both filled with people. At one time I think it was 25 people we had. With that many here we were still missing a few...
and then we took one of the just the grand kids and great grand kids. Once again we were missing a few.

Conner and Avery have become really good at the skim board the past few years. I get a little nervous with the many broken bones we have had but they seem to bounce pretty good on the sand when they go down... here they are posing before hitting the water.

For a few days Kennedi was not sure of the sand or the water. Of course on Chris' last day she started to walk into the water... yes I said WALK... She has become quite good since we have been here. Here are a few of her playing in the sand and water....

Chris and Kennedi got to spend a lot of time together this week. I think they both really enjoyed it.. I love the picture of the two of them on the beach. It is probably one of my favorite pictures of the two of them.

Of course we had to take the token family picture on the beach.. YUCK!! The sun was out and shining so we all had our eyes squinted pretty badly... but a few turned out great!

Chris looking very relaxed.... I think he needs to take a week off more often!!

and to end this update, here is one of the 3 babies of the family. Meredith and Ryan are great grands and then of course Kennedi is a grand.....