Beach Week

The past 6yrs our family has gone to our beach house in Topsail Island, which is not far from Wilmington, NC.  Well, it's not our beach house... We have just rented the same house all 6yrs so it kinda seems like it's ours.

 

This year, we went the week after the DNC so we were so ready to get away.  My sister and I loaded up a van full of beach stuff and children and headed to go open up the beach house.  The next evening, Josh finally got there.  We were very happy to see him!  We hadn't seen him in a week and being at the beach is one of our very favorite things.

 

The rest of the week was full of lots of fun.

 

Of course there was lots of playing on the beach.

 

 

 

We love going to this beach house because we can take our dog with us.  Ellie loves the beach.  She likes to be right at the waves if the girls are in the water.  She also loves to relax and run.

 

 

 

 

Watching all 3 of our girls on the beach made me happy.

 

One of Josh and my favorite things to do is walk on the beach.  My girls usually stay at the house with my parents so it's a great time for us to talk, laugh, and encourage each other.

 

We also have some favorite beach traditions.

 

Sand Pudding is really yummy and the girls loved eating out of shovels and buckets.

 

 

 

 

 

1 pkg Vanilla Wafers

3 or 4 Oreos

8 oz Cream Cheese

1/4 C Butter

2/3 C powdered sugar

2 small pkgs French Vanilla pudding mix

2 3/4 C Milk

12 oz Cool Whip

Crush Oreos and Vanilla Wafers in a food processor to make sand.

 

 In a separate bowl, cream together softened 8 oz cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar.

In another bowl, mix pudding with milk.

 Add to cream cheese mixture.

 Fold in cool whip.

 

 Layer into buckets with sand, pudding, sand etc.

 

 

We also go "crab hunting" at night on the beach. 

Really it's 2 children with flashlights and a dog running around like crazy and screaming when they see a little crab, but it's fun.

 

 

 

 

 

Finding pirate treasure is also a favorite tradition.  Josh has created this story that he tells the girls about a pirate ship that sunk in a storm right by our beach house.  His story is that when it storms there is pirate treasure that washes up on the beach.  He buys some of those fake pirate coins that are popular at beach stores and he goes and hides them on the beach.  First thing in the morning we tell the girls there was a storm and we saw some treasure on the beach while we were walking.  They go running out there and find their treasure. They love this!

 

 

 

The girls have come to this beach house every summer of their lives.

 

Alyse - 5

 

Breeley - 2

 

Our final tradition is the annual try to get a good family picture.

 

 

Now summer is officially over at our house.