Beachy Keen

We had a very memorable Memorial Day weekend!

I had my reservations about the whole camping for five days idea...

...but it ended up working out just fine.

Minus

*the many ticks

*the thousands of people mashed into one campground

(why anyone want to set up camp five feet from 1400 other campsites to share a bathroom is beyond my understanding)

*the stinky non-dryable towels/swimsuits/clothes

*the nightly pool party with loud DJ/music until 11 pm

*the after pool party parade of pimped up golf carts carrying drunken campers

*the mosquito bites (I thought Alaska was bad...could have been the swampy stagnant stream behind our tent)

* the constant half roasted sticky marshmallows stuck on the bottom of my shoes

*the overdose of poptarts, Chick-fil-A, and smores

*the damp, sandy, dirty, buggy tent (I luckily had my own tent which was off limits to all...and always zipped up!)

*squabbling siblings (but that would have occurred anywhere)

*mattresses that kept deflating over night.

*Kids staying up until midnight each night (you can only imagine what that created)

But besides those little hangups...

IT WAS AWESOME TO CAMP!

We loved no agendas, sitting around the fire, watching the kids play non-stop with their friends, card games late into the night, telling stories, shopping at Walmart with the WHOLE family (don't know the last time that happened), seeing a movie together AND BEACHING EVERYDAY.

The weather was perfect!
Everyone loved the beach...even Ashton!

We built many a sand castle including this one made out of the Porter Family...

And how about these 5 beach babes?!

Daddy and the kids!

Ashton showing his muscles..

Tate loving the sand.

Our stud Ethan!

Calvin the muscle man...

Our cute Sommer...

We rode the waves. Calvin and I took a daily roller blading trip along the boardwalk (dipped in the Marriott pool and snuck Dairy Queen...shhh!), found sea shells, got sunburned (missed a few spots), got tumbled by waves (very upsetting to Ashton), watched a surfing contest, witnessed Garth and the boys being whistled at by the lifeguard to come closer to shore (riptides) where finally the guard had to swim out to get them (Garth didn't think they were pointing to them) and gave them a tongue lashing, spent some great time with super friends, played some serious smash ball, read up on all of the People, US, Star mags...and on and on!

I love these people!

We ended our vacation back at Busch Gardens amusement park where crowds were non-existant. We literally could ride over and over again without the slighest of waits. This positive aspect to our day had one huge negative result: massive nausea! We were all quite sick after little to no breaks between swirling, spinning and dropping...

But man it was fun!