Garden City 2008

This past week we went to Garden City Beach with my mom's family. All 6 brothers and sisters and their children. We really had a fun time and got to do lots of fun things. This year everyone was a lot wiser and we got 2 beach houses instead of one. I don't care how close your family is or how much you love each other 25 people in one house is a bad idea!!! This year all people with young kids were in one house and grown ups were in one house, although I am not sure my male cousins qualify as grown-ups. A few mornings Patrick and I were up with the children at 7:00 and the cousins had not gone to bed yet!! I swear I do not remember ever doing that!!!!
We pretty much played on the beach every morning before the sun came out full force and had some activity planned for the afternoon. Mom and Patrick took Anna and Jack to the mud bar one afternoon. Anna had been last year but this was Jack's first time sinking up to his knees in mud. He didn't seem to even have a problem with that until millions of fiddler crabs started emerging! He does not do crabs and I don't know if he will want to do the mud bar again. They had the annual mud fight on the bar and when they came back Anna's entire ear canal was filled with black mud! Poor Patrick forgot to bring old shoes to wear so he wore shoes that were 2 sizes too small and had terrible blisters later. Everyone enjoyed Bates' new boat especially Jack. He went out one time for well over an hour and had no desire to get off the boat. He had his captain's seat picked out and was happy as a clam there. One day Patrick went knee boarding with Jack looking on from his seat. When they got back I asked Jack "How did Daddy do kneeboarding?" His response was.. "He did good but then he fell off and drowned one time." To Jack if you are fully submerged under water for any length of time you have officially drowned. Alec loved everything about the beach especially hanging out with Cousin Laura who is 6 months younger. Anna especially loved being with her big girl cousins and their friends and she could have stayed on the beach until sundown. We managed to stay for 5 days and that beats our 4 days last year. Maybe next year we'll make 6!!!