Labor Day Beach Trip 2011

On Labor Day weekend, when around 87,000 people were invading our quaint little town for a weekend of football, our family loaded up the car for a long anticipated trip to the beach!

Turner and I normally go to the beach with my family every summer while Mark slaves away at CWE, but since my mother broke her ankle badly in late May the beach was totally out of the question in June and July.  With school starting in August, and my new job responsibilities, we realized that a Labor Day beach trip would be our best option.  We shared our idea with both of our families and invited everyone to join us, and before we knew it we had a multi-family vacation planned!  Mark found two condos in the same unit and concocted a beautiful plan in which both sets of grandparents and Turner stayed in one condo, and me, Mark, Rebekah, and Matt stayed in another.  He's a brilliant man I tell you!

If you know me and my love for the beach, you can infer that my entire family feels the same way about our time in the sand, sun, and waves.  You can imagine our trepidation as we traveled south, knowing that we were driving straight into Tropical Storm Lee who also decided to take his beach vacation on Labor Day weekend.  I was honestly afraid we wouldn't see any sun and our beach time would be limited at best.

We all arrived by Friday night and by Saturday morning Turner was fully prepared for what we feared to be a wet visit to the beach. (Excuse the Minnie Pearl look with the umbrella.)

But, nevertheless, we all headed out early in what would be our only rain free time on the beach for Saturday.  I grabbed some great pictures, despite a blistering wind that would almost lift you off your feet!

This is my favorite picture of the weekend....these five people all love one another so much!  Mark and I are so incredibly grateful for the relationship that our parents share and for how they genuinely enjoy each other's company!  Can you tell Turner is the only grandchild on both sides of the family?

We did brave the water, and Turner got her fill of jumping waves.  ENORMOUS waves!

And of course Mark had to scare me to death getting much further out in the rough waters that I wanted him to.  I love jumping waves with the best of them, but one tug of that current and I was done!  There were three red flags flying....and here's my husband.

Not to be outdone by Mark, Pop and Grandpa wanted a little piece of these waves.  It seriously scared me to death to see them all out there!

After about an hour we headed up to the pool, which after about 10 minutes looked like this from the wind!

We had obvoiusly planned to watch the Auburn game around lunchtime, but with the nasty weather the entire day ended up being filled with football watching, snacking, and napping.  My sister and I sat on the bed for a long time and perused our Pintrest accounts - something we would have never taken the time to do together if the sun had been out.  It was a restful rainy day, and we capped it off with some afternoon shopping at the outlet malls. The White House Black Market outlet is a dangerous place, I tell you!

Late Saturday night I had laid down with Turner and she asked me if we were going to be able to go back to the beach the next day.  Fearing the worst as TS Lee raged in the Gulf, I told her we might have just a little time in the morning.  Rain was predicted at 100% for the entire day.  As I left the grandparents condo and walked back to mine, I breathed a very small and almost halfhearted prayer (that I honestly thought would be answered with a "no") that we would have "just a little" time to enjoy the beach on Sunday.

Can I tell you that I laughed when this is what I saw the next morning?  God loves to surprise me when I have limited faith...I asked for a "little" time, and we had 6 great hours of beach time on Sunday - mind you with a 100% percent chance of rain!  I was so, so grateful!

There were water gun fights!

Granny got in on the sandcastle building!

And there was a lot of sun bathing - this one is learning her Mommy's bad habits early!

Mark drew Turner's name in the sand...

...and then Matt wrote her FULL name in his most meticulous non-doctor-ish handwriting.

Then, somehow an almost 4 year old convinced three grown adults over age 60 to stand "guard" over her name to try to protect it from the chasing and erasing by the powerful tides as they came in.

Turner loves Matt and it's really fun to watch him play with her!

These two men and this little girl...the connection is so powerful.  She tries to appease me by saying she's "both Mommy's and Daddy's girl", but its no secret she's really a Daddy's girl.  And I am ok with that, since I can relate in my feelings toward the man in the red shirt below.  :)

This beach weekend was the perfect retreat after a busy, busy summer! Thank you to our families for joining us for this special weekend!  There are already rumblings in our house about about "same time same place" next year!