Spider Love

Emily was dressed up as Spidergirl and Noah as Spider-Man. They really do love each other. 

Vacation, day 15

We are about 20 minutes from home and it's about 10:30 at night. It's been a long travel day. It's good to be home. This is the sunset from the plane. 

We are so fortunate to have had such a great trip and thank Dad and Suzy and The Kelley family for having us. And my Mom for holding down our fort and watching our sweet dog.  

And God willing, we'll do it again next year!

Vacation, Day 14

It was our last day of fun for our vacation. Tomorrow is a travel day.

We headed to the beach we were at yesterday. Emily wanted to jump off the pier. She was a little scared still, but I knew she could do it and I didn't want her to regret not doing it. We warmed up on the beach. You know stretching out for the big jump.



Cousin Amy went first.


Then, Ben. I love that Emily was clapping for him. She was so nervous. The tide was high though, so it was a good 5-10 feet higher than yesterday when we jumped.


Emily and Ben decided to go together. She was scared.


She needed a little encouragement. And by encouragement, I mean a push from her Dad. I love that Ben's arm was going around "help" her too.





When Emily came up, I thought she would either be crying or happy. She came up and said, "That was AWESOME!" And jumped about 10 more times.

Here's a video of one of her jumps.


Then, all three of them jumped together. This picture makes me laugh. Amy jumped off first and jumped farther, so it looks like she is the size of a lego man and it looks like Emily is pushing her.




Emily jumped by herself.


Ben being Batman.


Emily liked jumping from the lower part which is about a foot lower. She finally jumped from the higher part.


Then, Noah kept wanting to swim from the little dock over to the ladder by the pier where we were jumping and climb up. Aunt Paula had a lifevest. And off he went. I couldn't believe he didn't even look back. He just swam out in the ocean all by himself.




Cousin Amy helped her get through the pier without getting cut on barnacles.

And up the ladder he went.


That's pretty brave for 4 years old!

Then, he was freezing. Ben was freezing before too and I put David's shirt on him followed by my cover up. Since Ben was dry at this point, we got Noah dressed. He looks like Yoda. Cold, I am.


Then, Amy and Emily swam from the pier to the shore. Emily used the lifevest for a little help since it was such a long swim.


Then, David jumped off the pier and tried to catch them.




He won! Although, they didn't know they were even in a race.


Noah build a sand castle.


The boys played on the logs. I love the beaches here. This long wasn't there yesterday, but anything can come in with the tide.


Emily and Amy went back out and I thought Emily was going to jump from the super top. But, she didn't.


Then, David and Noah joined them.


A Momma and her ducks.


Then, we went out for one last gelato. Yum! We stopped at a different beach just to check it out tonight. The beaches here are all so different. This one had crashing waves and smooth pebble rocks everywhere.


And that wraps up our big vacation of 2014. We have a 14 hour travel day tomorrow. Leaving by 7:45 to catch an 8:30 ferry. Then, on to a three hour drive to Seattle as well as crossing the border, which can sometimes take hours. Then, we have a 5:00 flight and then land in Phoenix. Then, get our car and drive the 90 minutes home. We should be there around 10:00 at night. Whew, I'm tired already. It's been a great trip and who know, if we aren't at the border for long, we may have time for something fun in Seattle!

Vacation, Day 13

I actually did take one photo yesterday. Noah found this old Fisher Price toy that used to belong to cousin Greg. David thought it was super cool because he used to play with an identical toy. It was from 1970!


We headed to a different beach this morning. It had a pier and David and the kids went out to take in the view. I stayed on shore.


They found a starfish.


Then, two...


Then, three...


They were all dead.

Emily made a habitat for them complete with seaweed, rocks and dead crabs.


There were lots of dead crabs.


Noah found one that was his size.


And a middle one for Ben...


David and Ben went off exploring.


Here's the pier. Notice how tall it is at the very end?


Everybody jumps off the end of the pier. So, we decided when in Rome. David was going to go first, but he kept chickening out. I said, I would go, but once I got ready, David wanted to do it first. This went on for close to 45 minutes. Then, he finally went.






It's probably 15-20 feet down as we were at low tide. Ben wanted to go next, but with David. I love that Emily was so encouraging and she's clapping for him.







Ben did great. He swam to David so fast when they hit the water.


Then, they went again.


Now, it was my turn. I couldn't do all talk and no action, so I freaked once and went on my second try. Notice my eyes are closed the entire time.




It was soooo freaky. Can you tell who the photographer is in the family? David barely got me in a frame, but at least he got it. I'm 40 years old and I've never jumped off a pier. Neither had David. Emily was too scared. She tried and tried, but in the end couldn't bring herself to do it. This from the girl who wants to ride upside down roller coasters over and over. But, this had several different factors, height, cold water, the ocean.... I tried to get her to go just because I don't want her to have any regrets.

We left and came home for lunch. Then, we hit another beach by their house. Both of these beaches are within a 2 minute drive, so since the weather was bad yesterday, we hit up two today.

Ben loves this log and he makes standing up there look so easy.



Noah was camped out. The second we get to the beach, the kids want snacks. Drives me crazy.


Emily and Amy were out swimming. Amy was dunking her.




Noah found this log that was like a teeter totter.


Emily LOVES her cousin Amy.


I decided to try the log. Not as easy as it looks.


Then, David waltzes out there just to show me up!


The kids having fun.



Cousin Amy was playing seaweed monster with them.


Emily and Ben were trying to stand on this log. It lasted about 3 seconds each time.


We went to Chinese for dinner. Noah had my camera again for these next few shots...


Noah was sitting next to me when I went through these pics and he told me he wanted me to put this one on our blog. So, he took it and there I am.


Then, we went for gelato.


Then, we went back to the pier, so Emily could see it at high tide. It's probably only a 10-15 foot drop around dinner time. She said she would do it tomorrow night!


Here's our tribe.


And here's a picture of the ferry that will take us on our journey home on Wednesday. Boo.