Orange Beach, December 2008, Part One

The second week in December, we were excited for our trip to Orange Beach!!! Jon's Aunt Brenda and her fiance, Scott, own a timeshare that they needed to use--so they invited some of the family to come on down for a week!!! This was our first family trip and we had SO much fun! The next 3 posts are going to be about this trip--there were just too many pictures that I wanted to put up! Who was there? I'll let you know the "cast" so I can use names...

• Jon's Grandma--Great-Grandma--Mother of Papa, Aunt Brenda and Uncle Mike
• Jon's Parents--Papa and Nana
• Jon's Aunt Brenda and her fiance, Scott
• Jon's Uncle Mike and his wife Aunt Lucy
• Us

The condo was beautiful--3 bedrooms that each had their own bathroom, a kitchen, dining area and living area. Two of the bedrooms and the dining room all came out onto the same balcony that looked out to the water.

We got there late Monday night (btw 12 and 1 am) so the first time the kids really saw anything was Tuesday morning. They LOVED looking off the balcony!

I love this picture of Jordan and Papa laughing and talking with each other!

Jordan and Great-Grandma

Lawson's birthday was December 14, the Sunday we were going to come back from the beach. Nana and Papa brought his gift to give him early so he could play with them in the sand. That first day, Tuesday, was going to be the only really nice day we had, so we got dressed and headed outside!

Lawson's first time to get his feet wet at the beach.
Jordan's first time to get her feet wet at the beach.

The kids just LOVED the sand!!! It was windy, but about 70 degrees and sunny that day. We had so much fun just playing and running around together!

Lawson looking for seashells.

Papa helping Jordan find "sea-shelfs." It was so funny--this is what she called them the whole week. Even when I would correct her, she still said sea-shelf. So cute.

We buried Lawson and he loved it!

Jordan crowding in on Lawson's hole.
Jordan and Daddy playing with Lawson's new construction trucks.

More fun in the sand...Lawson got pretty good at making sand-castles by himself. Sometimes they would crash down, but sometimes he actually patted them firm enough to stand!

Nana may kill me for putting up a picture, but I don't care!! I love this picture of her and J.

I love this picture too:

Jon and his dad

Crab Story

Back in November, Jon's parents came to watch the kids while we went to the Fall Retreat with the youth group. For some crazy reason (obviously not realizing that our kids memorize everything anyone tells them and keep it on record in their brains for all time) Jon's dad told them that when we went to the beach that they would have to watch out for the crabs.

"Crabs live at the beach," he said, " and they come out of the sand. You have to be careful because they have pinchers (insert thumb to fingers motion moving like pinchers here) and they chase you around."

Seriously? Tell a 2 and a 4 year old that? (I guess in the sake of 'fairness' I must insert that he denies telling them this...but they both knew the story word for word and I heard it the first time the day after they left! My typing of the story comes from what I memorized while they told me this story 14 times a day from November 9 til December 8!)

I honestly didn't think we would see any crabs. I thought it was too cold, or out of season, or whatever. In my (ha ha) 'expert' beach opinion, I didn't think we would have anything to worry about. Well, that first day, Jon, Papa and Uncle Mike went for a long walk down the beach, and came back with this little cute sucker:

Doesn't he look like he belongs in the Little Mermaid (the next one, what is it? Little Mermaid 9?) So after the dramatic Story of the Crabs, then me trying to alleviate their concerns...Lo and behold they actually find a (tiny) living crab. They also found a (larger) dead one. And brought them both back to Lawson.

And he actually held it! I couldn't believe my eyes!!!

Anyways...here are only a few of my favorites from our first day on the sand.

There's more stories to come...