might as well jump!

 Everyone is back in school, but it is still over 100 degrees, and I am still not done with my vacation pictures.  This was a wonderful summer, and one of the best I have ever experienced.  Bill was able to spend the entire month of July with us, and we made the most of every minute.  I am so thankful he has a job during these hard economic times, but I'm even more thankful he has a job that he loves, that enables him to spend this precious month with us each year.  I took these pictures on our last day playing at the beach. Trying to get all five kids to jump at the same time proved to be a little difficult.

 The kids love when Bill chases them around the beach, plays football, throws the frisbee, and wrestles with them in the sand.  He makes everything fun.  One of the many reasons I love him.

 Gracie and Delaney made us one last sandcastle.  They both are so talented in this area.  I guess it shouldn't surprise me with how gifted Delaney is in art, and Gracie with music.

 Luke couldn't wait to get the green light to start jumping over the finished product.

 Love this shot of Delaney!

 This picture makes me a little weepy because we have watched these two grow up a little more each year, and for some reason, they are starting to look a little too grown up!  Delaney just started high school and Dylan began 7th grade.  They have always enjoyed many of the same things, from boogie boarding to basketball.  They just finished their second season of playing basketball on the Upland YMCA league together.

 Bill started twirling and spinning Luke around, and next thing you know, was spinning Gracie and Emi too!

 This is the path from the back door of our beach house to the wooden staircase that took us down to the beach. 

 Molly and Owen stayed with us at the beach house on the last night of our vacation while John and Bill went to see Alabama at the Mid-State fair.  Molly decided not to go and sweetly offered her ticket to Bill.  Since it is his favorite group of all time, he gladly accepted!  That meant Molly spent the evening with us out on the beach, and in the house having fun on pinterest with Gracie.

 Grammy (Aunt Sue to Owen) enjoyed getting to play with Owen for a while.

 Some of the sand dollars I found at the beach during one of my morning jogs.  Every year I bring back a few more.  I have enough that now that I have a little spot by my the fountain in the back yard that has all of my rocks, shells and sand dollars that I have collected over the years.  I can't wait to add more!

 My four kiddos on the steps that lead down to the beach, just as the sun was starting to set.

 Trying to get a good shot of all four of them with Owen.

 Our last sunset for the summer

 I didn't get very many pictures of Madison, but I had to take one shot of her favorite spot in the house.  Most of the time you could find her reading and listening to her music in this chair.

Can you guess which shoes belong to which people?  We were so concerned with too much sand being brought into the house that we took off our shoes before coming in.

 Emi and Gracie love to share a room with Grammy.  Here are the three of them in their room on the last night.

 I loved the look of this kitchen, but did not love the fact that Mom and I kept setting the smoke alarm off whenever we cooked too much!  We had to always open the windows whenever we were cooking anything!  Lori was sure that we were probably the first people to even use the kitchen.  I think she was right, because there were hardly any cooking utensils, but we made due.

One last jump on the beach for Gracie before leaving...
Our last morning on the beach, I was able to get all of my family together for a group shot. (Except for Madison) No one really enjoys the process, but I'm glad we took the time to do it.

Goodbye to our home away from home.  After seven years of going, that what's Cayucos feels like to us.

sun rays and birthdays

We were so close to the sand, it was fun to be able to go back out on the beach right before sunset and play some more.  This particular night had a gorgeous sunset and I ran up to get my camera to catch some of the fun and the sunlight on their faces.

 This night they weren't just throwing the frisbee, but trying to catch it inside their arms and on their head.  Bill loves showing Dylan who is the best!

 Wish I had some audio to go with this picture.  I love the sound of the waves and was so blessed to have the room at the very top of the house with all those windows!  We kept them open every night.  It was the best!

 Here's Delaney coming down the steps from the house.  The steps were a little creaky and old, but stayed together for us during the whole two weeks.

 Here's Lori, Chris, Len and Shirley enjoying the sunset, as well as Grammy and Delaney.

 It's really hard to catch Gracie in a picture when she isn't looking at the camera.  She has amazing camera radar and has taken a huge interest in learning how to use my camera. 

 My sweet Lukey.

 I love how the light bounced off of Emi's hair. 

Dylan is reminding me more and more every day of his dad.  They are starting to walk, talk and write the same way. They are both fiercely competitive with each other, even down to playing slug bug in the car. Bill started waving his hands in the car the other day to block Dylan's potential view of any Volkswagon bugs.  They are crazy and I love it!

The next day, we were back out on the beach enjoying the perfect weather.  Grammy and Grandma Shirley really have a knack for building sand castles.  They helped the girls several times come up with new ideas.

 Caleb actually fell asleep on the beach a couple of times over the two weeks.  He has his hands covering his face and slept that way for almost an hour.

 Shirley came one morning to the house after shopping at Target and brought Emi some stretchy, bouncy balls that the girls gave names to.  Here you can see everyone throwing them to each other.  i will have to ask Gracie what their names were, maybe Fred and George?

 We were able to celebrate Caleb's fourth birthday while we were in Cayucos.  I didn't have any wrapping paper so Gracie and I wrapped his presents in newspaper.  Gracie didn't mind the idea too much until Shirley came in with real wrapping paper after we were done. Like I told Gracie, Caleb didn't care what his presents were wrapped in, because they only stayed wrapped for a few minutes.  Aunt Gail got him the Angry Birds shirt that he has on in the picture, Grammy got him an Angry Birds blanket, and Len and Shirley got him an Angry Birds game.  Yes, he does love the angry birds!

 Here's the whole gang including baby Owen! So happy I got this picture of them all!

My baby is four. I guess I can't call him a baby anymore.  He is so fun to talk to now.  He can carry on a pretty long conversation and is always saying things that make me laugh. He loves playing with Luke and can often be found doing whatever Luke is doing, down to copying whatever noises he is making with his cars or legos.  He is also content to play by himself, pretending all kinds of things with his toys, and if he doesn't have toys, he will use his fingers or his dad's shoe.  He seems too young to be four, but atleast I have a year to enjoy it!

Madison does not like to have her picture taken, and I do remember being much the same way when I was her age.  But, I did need a couple of pictures so that we would remember she was here with us.  Caleb adores her and I love that she adores him!

I'm going to head down to the coast...

 I put this picture on facebook right after we got to Cayucos.  It was a little cold and foggy but we couldn't resist going down to the beach because we were so close! We found out a few months ago that our favorite beach house, the surf shack, had been sold.  We were left with very few options of other homes that were big enough, except for this newly remodeled home with a beautiful view of the beach.  We have never stayed so close to the sand before, and needless to say, we loved it!

 I feel like lately I have been talking a lot about Caleb's fears and how he is learning to overcome them.  Even after our progress with swimming lessons, Caleb didn't want to touch the water that first day we were there.  I carried him and dropped his feet into the water and within two minutes he remembered how much he liked it! Every day he would tell me he didn't want to go to the beach, and then every day he LOVED it!

 We love throwing frisbees and flying kites at the beach.  Lori bought a couple of smaller kites from the dollar store and Luke quickly got the hang of flying this Buzz Lightyear kite.  He kept his kite up higher and longer than anyone else.

 One of the family's favorite spots is the Cayucos Candy Counter.  They make their own ice cream and everyone loves the "Cayucos Candy Crunch." Although Aunt Lori loves "Sand Pebbles" flavor and was so happy that they finally made some by the end of our second week.

 Aunt Lori had some work to do while we were vacationing.  Here you can see her trying to work on her laptop and enjoy the sounds of the beach without the glare from the sun.  She stayed like that for a long time!

 Len and Shirley came in their trailer for the first week and stayed in Morro Bay but spent a lot of time having fun with us at our house.  The kids loved making sandcastles with Shirley and Grammy. 

 If the kids weren't on the beach playing, they wanted to be in this spot in the house playing video games.  I kept pulling them away from the tv, to go on walks to the beach and to the park.

 On this particular day we took cars out to the beach and Caleb spent a long time just racing his cars up and down this rock by our house.

 Gracie is still not too old to enjoy snuggling up with Grammy. 

 "I don't want to go in the water..."  "Mom, I like the water"... "Mom, come watch me in the water"  ... "Mom, I'm hungry, do you have any food?"  I heard those phrases lots of times over the two weeks we were there.

 Gracie really got the hang of making sand castles.  She spent a long time working on this one all by herself.

 Bill brought his fishing poles this year to take the kids fishing on the pier.  This is the first time they went.  I came walking up to the pier about an hour after they left to see if they caught anything.  Nothing was biting that morning, except my boys eating up the whole bag of snacks I sent with them.

 These are the baby swings on the beach of Cayucos that both Luke and Caleb have been on every year since they were born. Luke was determined to show me that he can still swing in them.

This is what we call the "Sea Shanty" park because it is right across the street from the "Sea Shanty", one of the kids (and the dads) favorite places to go and have dessert. I have been taking them to this park every year for the past seven years, but this is the first time any of them have thought to climb this tree. It cracked me up to hear, "Mom" and I couldn't find Luke until he told me to look up!  I know it's not that tall of a tree but he was proud of himself!
Lots more pictures to come soon!