Beach Vacation 2016

We had another great vacation on Amelia Island this year.  I love that we still vacation with my extended family.  There have been many changes since last year, including the addition of my bro-in-law Chase and the birth of two babies- James and Riley Quinn.  Several of our family members have recently begun new jobs, which meant that they could only stay at the beach for a few days due to work commitments.  Still, we had a good number of people who were at the beach all week, and we all had a great time.  I will be doing a couple of posts with our beach pictures.

First up:  the beach.  This is my favorite place to be when we are on vacation.  The kids spent a fair amount of time playing in the sand and boogie boarding, but less time than in years past.  The older kids were able to "walk around" solo more this year than in the past, and they took full advantage of that.  I think that they enjoyed having a little more independence.  This also meant that I didn't have to have them under my thumb at every moment, so I was able to have more "alone time" on the beach than in years past.  That was nice too.

 The babies got loads of attention all week long.  R.Q. is definitely a beach baby.  James, on the other had, is not yet a fan of the sand or water.  He liked hanging out in the condo with Gigi.

 The Pokemon Go app came out right before we went to the beach.  Brian and Owen spent quite a bit of time trying to "catch'em all".

 Melanie was able to join us for a couple of days and we were glad to see her.  We had several yummy meals at some of or favorite local restaurants- and ice cream (of course).

 ...Still hunting Pokemon...

 On our last night we all went out to eat.  We usually go to the Marina, but it was booked up this year.  We tried a new place- the Sandollar.  This was a great place!  It was right on the water in the Mayport area of Jacksonville.  We were able to watch large ships come into and out of the port as we ate.  This was a nice way to close out the week.