A Day at the Beach

Micah had a post-deployment doctor's appointment.  Lucky for us this appointment was at Tyndall Air Force Base, which just happens to be right next to the beach and all the beautiful white sand, blue skies, and green-blue ocean that only the gulf coast can offer.  So we took the kids out of school and headed to the beach. 

Tyndall has a private beach, which is AWESOME.  There aren't any crowds, the sand is gorgeous white fluff, no trash, lots of shells and sand dollars.  It is heavenly!  The only downside is that you have to walk on a 1/2 mile boardwalk to even get to the sand.   Hauling gear for 6 people to spend 5 hours on the beach with no facilities is ridiculous, but we did it!  Or should I say Micah did it!  Here are a few pictures of the highlights of the day!

 Porter was in love with this knee board. It was the perfect size for riding the waves with!

Sam was fearless and tried to drown himself a few times!  We had to keep an eye on him because he kept trying to go for a swim on his own.  He also had an affinity for dipping his chips into the water and sand.  Gross!!

I have no idea what ella was doing.  She kept doing all these funny poses when I tried to take her picture!

Harmon was showing me his hand stand.  The water was a bit shallow but he was getting pretty good at it!

Harmon is like a little fish.  He loves the water and I had a hard time getting a picture of him.  He and I had a great time looking for shells.  We found a lot of sand dollars and really big shells that day.  It was perfect shell-hunting conditions.  We put all of our sand dollars into a pocket of our beach stroller, only to put a bunch of stuff on top of them and we ended up smashing them.  Oh, the disappointment!  I think 3 little ones survived. 

I thought about not including this picture, but I just loved the chubby buns too much!

 

Here is a good picture of some our our shells and Ella's foot.

When Sam was trying to drown himself he would hang out with me under our canopy.  I was reading a book and just taking it easy.  Ella was a bit skittish about the water and spent a lot of time under the canopy playing with the sand.

Sam with sand in his hair.  He had sand everywhere!  When it came time to eat both he and Ella had a hard time keeping the sand out of their food.  Gross.

 

As we reached the end of our half-mile hike the sea oats and shrubs open up to reveal a massive stretch of white sand.  Ella inhaled quickly and said, "SNOW!  Look at the snowflakes!"  It was too funny!

After Ella had been down to the water she promptly came back up and told me that the water was "yu-ee"  And kept spitting everywhere.  Apparently she wasn't expecting that salty taste!   Sam thought it was pretty yucky too!

Harmon's handstand.  Harmon, Sam and I were out in the water jumping with the waves that came in.  While we waited we could feel lots of fish swarming our feet and legs.  They especially like my toenail polish.  It is a bit unnerving to be constantly assulted by 6 inch fish.  Harmon had his goggles on and I asked him how many fish were around my feet.  He dipped his head in to take a look.   When he came back up he was grinning real big and said, "There are hundreds of fish all around your feet, following your feet everywhere.  It's like your feet are famous or something!"  HA HA!  I got a good laugh out of that!

Porter and Harmon

Anticipating the waves!