Final beach trip of the summer

Summer is over and fall is definitely creeping in but wanted to remember our final beach trip of the summer. As I mentioned before, the summer was rainy and yucky but the end to the summer has been amazing. Sunny days and lots of blue sky and that is exactly what we had the entire 5 days at the beach and knowing this was our final summer vacay, we definitely made the most of the weather. We arrived at our happy place, Seabrook Island, to this. Long beach, blue sky and no one on the beach, perfection!

 On the way down though, we had a little bit of perfection for Mike and I as well. We just got a new car and the new car has a DVD player and Ella can now watch her movies with headphones on while we can listen to XM radio, life is much more enjoyable (now only if Maddie would sleep more than 30 minutes in the car.)

 But once we arrived, we all quickly changed and went right down to the beach. All were happy to be on the beach and out of the car!

 Ella playing the washers game with DeeDee

 E and M loved digging and making sand castles, they would do it for hours under the tent and Daddy was such a good sport and did lots of building as well.

 After cleaning off all the sand, we changed into our Georgia gear to cheer on Uncle Court and Ms Laura's team. Unfortunately, the jerseys were not good luck this time but tailgating on the ocean is definitely the best view.

 The next morning while the guys went golfing, the girls went to the pool. And these two left off from 3 weeks before. Maddie Grace running into the water without fear and Ella jumping off the side.

 But MG also discovered another fun game, filling up water bottles and dumping them all over herself. She literally did this for hours and was happy and content. Remind me again why I buy toys when this is all they ever want to play with?!?!

 That afternoon (after both girls napped, hallelujah) we got all dressed up for a boat ride. Let me tell you some back story on this. There is a marina 5 minutes from my parents house and my Dad has always wanted to rent a boat for an afternoon and take it on the ocean. However, that sounds great but the Lanio's are not boat people. My parents lived on a lake in Richmond for almost 20 years and never owned a boat for a reason. But it was my Dad's birthday so we agreed to it...

 Safe and sound on dry land

Side note, my Mom got the girls these adorable dresses almost a year ago hoping they would fit this summer and normally they would have but little Maddie Grace is so little so her 12-18 outfit was huge on her but since we were going on a boat, they had to wear them!

 Here is how the boat went down. The boat was much much smaller than we thought so we were crammed on there, Ella was so scared and didn't want to even get on, Maddie HATED the giant life jacket and just wanted to walk around and not be held and the wind was so bad we were all blown away. My mom packed cheese and crackers and wine to drink on the boat. We had to hang on for dear life, there was no wine or cheese and crackers.

 Ella finally calmed down but kept telling Papa to slow down.

 She did finally help Papa drive which she thought was more fun. Let's just say that this family will NOT be boating anytime soon. Unless of course it is a huge yacht, I think I could handle that!

 After the boat, we came back to the house to enjoy the ocean and sunset

A rare picture of the four of us!

 Ella loves her Uncle Court so much. She loved to wake him up (very early) each morning and they would make up these silly games together. 

 The girls with their Papa on his birthday. I am so glad that we were able to spend such a fun (and eventful) day with him.

 The next day, we went back to the pool but this time with the whole family. 

Flying with Daddy

 I could seriously eat her up with a spoon, my sweet happy girl with her little teethy smile!

 After two days at the pool, we headed back for a day at the beach and lots of sand castles. It is so nice to have the option between pool and beach. With little kids, they tend to like both and we were able to have the best of both worlds.

 Playing with DeeDee's marsh mellow shooter (yes, you read that right)

 Filling up water buckets with Daddy

 This girl didn't stop much, she was on the move the entire time

 They were building castles for Cindrella, Belle and Ariel, complete with a moat in front of the castles

 This little one was happy to fill up wet sand in her bucket and then dump it out again

 To watch them actually playing together and laughing together just melts my heart. I can't wait for them to grow up together at this beach and make so many memories.

 Our final morning was very sad, no one wanted to leave. We played on the back deck for awhile before heading over to the pool for one last dip.

 It was such a fun and exhausting trip. Maddie was literally asleep within 2 minutes of getting in the car. Too bad, she still woke up 45 minutes later.

The next day was the girls first day of preschool (I need to blog about that soon also) so it was definitely the end of super fun summer and back to reality but I am so glad that we got to spend our final summer days enjoying lots of family time and of course sunshine and sand as well.

Best Friends for 25+ years

Way back about 25 years ago, I met two friends who would become two if my very best friends all these years later. We literally grew up together, did everything together and Lynn and I even went to VT and roomed together. Now, all these years later, our lives have taken us across the country (VA, NC and TX) but about a month ago, we were able to come together and meet at one of my most favorite places ever, Seabrook Island SC to a long weekend. Oh yeah, did I mention, we each have two little girls and two of them even share the same name, sort of. So, that would be 6 girls ages 2 months-4 years old. It was one wild and fun weekend!

Getting six girls to look at the camera at the same time is challenging. All the parents were jumping around doing crazy dances for this pictures. I think the girls thought we were crazy.

Girls L-R, Ella-4, Madelynn Booth-2, Madeline Hennessy-1, Abby-2, Emma-2months, Caroline-4

This summer has been so rainy and we were so over it but we lucked out and the 3 days we were at the beach were absolutely gorgeous. Blue skies, hot and sunny, just what you want at the beach.

Ella and Caroline are just 3 months apart and quickly became best friends. Lynn and her family came to visit us in Charlotte in April and these two played together that entire weekend and they picked right up again at the beach. I can just imagine fast forwarding this picture about 10-12 years when they are teenagers walking along the beach.

Water balloon toss game. Let's just say these two didn't take home the crown.

The second night, we all got showered and dressed up (no small feat for our gang) and headed out to eat and enjoy live music. 

4 out of the 6 girls

Then Maddie Grace took and off she went!

We were quite a spectacle at dinner. We took up almost the entire restaurant, good thing we ate at 5:15!

After dinner, we headed to the green area to listen and dance to live music. The girls loved dancing and jumping around.

Maddie would prefer to stick close to the cooler, smart girl.

 Lots of hugs for Daddy

 Ok, it was hot and we were all sweaty but had to post a picture of us girls.

 The next morning, bright and early (because no one really sleeps with 6 girls), we were up for cereal in the morning.

 The kids definitely preferred the pool to the beach so we decided to spend the entire day at the pool.

 Where we did lots of jumping and swimming

 This picture is HUGE if you know Ella. She is such a scardy cat and would not jump off the side of the pool by herself but after playing and watching Caroline, she actually tried and realized it was fun! For the rest of the day, they jumped together.

 As you can see, Caroline learned to swim without the floatie so next summer, we will need to rip that band aid off and Ella needs to really swim but for this summer and while we were watching two little ones, the floatie worked fantastic.

 Way back when, Ella was 9 months old and we came to this same pool and she sat and splashed wearing her fish hat.

 Now, fast forward 3+ years later, and MG is wearing the same hat and splashing in the exact same spot. I love creating memories for the girls in the same places and looking back on pictures.

 We have the opposite problem with Maddie, she is fearless. She wants to swim and dive right into the water. Only problem is she is so little that all the floaties are too big and don't keep her up so we just have to watch her and hold her hand. But she would walk right in all the way to her neck and then do this mini dive thing. It scared me but we would pull her up and she would laugh and run and do it again. Definitely not scared at all. She will probably be swimming before her big sister!

 Our final night, we had a mini birthday celebration since E's birthday was only 2 days away. These girls were excited about cupcakes!

 I still can't believe that little bald headed baby in the above picture is now my big four year old, where does the time go?

 What a fun vacation we had. Lots of laughs, lots of sunshine and lots of cocktails. It was so fun to see how even though we all live far away, we can come together for a couple days and reconnect immediately and LOVE that our little girls are now forming a special bond as well. Until our next fun adventure...