Bailey Beach Week Part 2

One thing I loved about Beach Week this year is we didn't try to stick to a rigid schedule. If it was fun, we did it. If you were hungry, you ate. If you were tired, you slept. Rinse and Repeat. 

My mom is just about the cutest little beach bum I have ever seen! 

One and a half days into our vacation, it became clear that we should just shell out the money and buy these boys some goggles already. My brother brought some from home and was letting Ryan and Brady take turns at first. Zach and I went to the store one morning (without kids! Shoutout to family vacations where there is always an adult around to take care of the kids!- we take turns. ;) ) and we came back with some surprise goggles for Brady and Ryan. They were thrilled.

The goggles we bought came with bonus ear plugs and a nose plug! Ryan looked amazing.

First order of business: try out the new goggles!

Brady looked all sorts of cool in his goggles AND sun hat. I just love this little boy to bits!

We also picked up this giant inflatable rubber ducky that you can ride while we were at the store. It was awesome- best $8 I've spent in a long time! I asked Zach to get a picture of Brady on it. In true husband form he didn't get out of his lounge chair to get the best angle- but this time it kind of worked for me. I love all those boys in the foreground. I feel like it's a good representation of the busyness that was an afternoon at the pool.

The ducky was big enough for adults to ride too! "Ride the duck! Ride the duck!" We may or may not have had a Duck riding rodeo where my dad shook the duck and tried to knock the rider off while we timed it. Good times.

By Tuesday, I was anxious to get Camden out of the house and down on the sand. For the first couple days we would time our trips out to the ocean while he was napping but I knew he would just love playing in the sand. Even though it was getting late in the morning I packed us up and we headed down to the beach.

He played for a little while and- I was right- he LOVED it! Brady came too and continued to look amazingly awesome in his swim gear.

Like I said, it was getting later in the morning and I could tell Camden was fading fast. I held him in my lap as he slowly drifted off to sleep. We have always put our babies to sleep with a noise machine on the "ocean waves" setting so I joked that he had been training for this day from the day he was born.

Out for the count. And I am in heaven.

It ended up being a little bit of a cat nap and before long he was up and ready for more beach fun. My mom brought down her kite and let Camden help her. This is one of my all time favorite pictures of the trip.

There was plenty of time for beach bumming. After two weeks in Aruba, Lindsey and Rick are pros by now.

Ryan tried out the boogie boards with Rick and Zach. Zach said he was very brave but also very cautious. He was okay staying on shore and watching Zach and Rick catch a wave if he felt like it was too big. That's my boy!

By afternoon there was a storm moving in so we started gathering all our things and taking a few last minute pictures.

Sisters! (We really missed Anne on this trip! There were several times when we felt her missing. This picture was one of them.)

While we were breaking down my mom's tent/shade a little crab scurried over our beach towels. There was no question. We had to catch it. Rick did all the work catching it and then let us reap the reward of "ooing and awwing" over it and probably giving it a little crab heart attack.

Upon release this little guy never turned his back on us. He seemed pretty ticked off... a little crabby, if you will. #badumching!

Watching the storm clouds roll in on the horizon was definitely a highlight. It was so beautiful!

We were treated to the most amazing summer thunderstorm all afternoon. You could hear the rain beating on our house and it was awesome to go out on the deck and watch the huge rain drops fall all around. The storm blew out just after dinner and we started making preparations for crab hunting on the beach.

Crab hunting has become a favorite family tradition whenever we go to the Outer Banks. Every night around dusk hundreds of sand crabs come out and walk around. We bring flashlights and try to catch them in buckets. If you are my brother you pick them up and chase your sisters around with it. It's lots of fun. Trust me.

The boys were especially excited to go this year. So excited that they couldn't actually wait for it to get dark- so we let them go out a little early and walk along the beach.

Luckily, it was close enough to sunset that there were quite a few crabs out on the sand while we were making our way back to the house. Chris and the boys caught about 6 or 7. One was pretty big and very mean. They kept all the little ones in one bucket but learned quickly that the big mean one needed to be kept separate- when they tried to add a bucket-mate he immediately grabbed the smaller crab in his big pincers and tried to eat it! Not a happy day for the small crab! Sorry dude!

After a successful crab hunt (and day!) we headed inside for mini ice cream sandwiches and called it a night.

Another perfect day for the record books. (or blog as the case may be.)