The Deep End

 The kids spent a lot of time in the pool this year.  Unlike years past, a lot of time was spent in the deep end this year.  We had some diving toys, and the kids played with those quite a bit.  Owen, Audrey, and Julianna all made great gains during the week, and were all swimming along with the other kids by the end of the week.

 Audrey went from not wanting to swim in the deep end to going all over the place.

 Julianna was swimming underwater well by the end of the week.

Owen started swimming underwater and diving.  I feel much better about his swimming abilities now than I did before our vacation.

Fishing Week

 Brian always refers to beach week as "fishing week" because that is his favorite vacation activity.  He spends most of his time on the pier.  The kids have also caught the fishing bug, and this is also their number one beach activity. Brian and the kids caught lots of fish (and a couple of sharks) this week.

 A lot of the fishing happens at night.  I think that our crew cleaned Walmart out of all the their headlamps.

Of course, the expectation is that the kids will do all of the "dirty work" themselves- including baiting their hooks, handling the fish, and even some cleaning.  

I'm glad that the kids like doing this with their dad.

The Beach

 Sitting on the beach is my favorite thing to do during the week.  I would usually go down after lunch and stay about 3 hours or so.  The kids came to the beach several times as well.  Their favorite thing to do on the beach is boogie board.  Here are some of my favorite beach pictures from this year.

 Gigi bought the older girls matching swimsuits, and they looked super-cute.

Beach Vacation 2017

 We have just returned from our annual beach vacation on Amelia Island.  We had the most wonderful time.  In all we had a total of 32 people (12 kids) in 5 different condos.  Our family had our own condo this year, and that was really nice.  We were also on the bottom floor- which is my preference.  The best part, though, was that Olivia and Owen were finally old enough to go to the pool / pier / their cousin's condo on their own, so Brian and I had more time to do the things we wanted to do (fishing for him, sitting on the beach for me).  The week was so relaxing.

Shrek the Musical

 One of the things that we look forward to each summer is attending a performance of the Peach State Summer Theater with Granny Mel.  This year's production was Shrek the Musical.  It was so entertaining.  The kids loved it.  While all of the actors were fantastic, the kids liked Lord Farquad the best.  The actor playing him had to walk on his knees the whole time, and this just made the character really funny. While we were in Valdosta we had a nice meal and went to Books-a-Million, so it was just an all-around fun day.

On the Road with Papa

 Well, the vacation was over but we still had to make the long drive back home.  Brian had to get back to work so he flew home and my dad flew in to ride back home with us.

 We made a few pit stops in the Black Hills to show Daddy some of our favorite spots.

 We spent our first night in Wall and had another meal at the famous Wall Drug.  Olivia was happy that she got to have another buffalo hot dog.

 We drove through the Badlands on our second day home so that Daddy could see the beautiful scenery.

 On the third day we stopped at one of the kids' favorite places on earth- City Museum.  They have both declared this to be there favorite thing of the whole trip.  The roof was open this time, and they got to go up there.  They crawled, climbed, slid, and played for four hours.  We even got my dad on a few of the slides (including the 10-story slide).  This is the neatest place.

On the last day of our trip home, we stopped in Atlanta to visit the two cutest baby boys in the world (my nephews).  We got lots of love and baby sugar.  Those boys are growing so fast.

We are home now, and are resting up.  Being on the road for nearly two weeks will certainly take it out of you.  Even though it was a busy vacation, we all enjoyed seeing new parts of the country.  We are definitely going to do more extended road trips in the future.

The Mammoth Site

 On our last day in the Black Hills area, we traveled south to Hot Springs to visit the Mammoth Site.  During the ice age, there was a hot spring that had steep sides.  Because the water in the spring was warm, vegetation would grow around it year-round.  Animals would come to eat, fall in the spring, get stuck, and die.  As a result, there are tons of bones from various animals in one spot. This is an active dig site which has uncovered bones from 61 different mammoths so far.  There are bones from other animals as well.  I'd never heard of a short faced bear before visiting this site, but this ancient animal would have been terrifying.  I'm glad it's extinct.  We had a nice visit and then headed to Rapid City so that Brian could catch his plane the next day.  We really enjoyed our time in South Dakota.