Home

We've been busy since we got home.  There was a ton of laundry to do, of course, and very little food in the house.  On Monday, I did laundry and we went to the grocery store.  In the afternoon, Mollie had dance and Ben had his first soccer game at 7 p.m.  And we had to get back in the school routine after taking last week off.  

 Playing goalie.

On Tuesday, we went to CC and finished the laundry.

 Ben loves the Peanuts and made the picture online of himself as a Peanuts character.  They are so excited about the new movie coming about in November.

 This is a picture of Ben with all his teeth.  This afternoon he had his top four front teeth pulled by an oral surgeon.  They were concerned because the top middle two teeth weren't dropping like they should.  The ones on either side were so loose that the doctor just took them out while he was in there for no extra charge.  I'll get a picture of Ben's new smile when he's feeling better.  Right now it looks pretty rough.  He was incredibly brave during the whole procedure.

Friday and Saturday

Friday was our last day at the beach.  We had to leave early Saturday morning headed back to the camp to park the trailer.  

 Janey buried Mollie.

 Mollie calls them "friend cousins."

 MV with her mini-me.  I doubt Annie will ever have MV's legs, though.  Annie loved spending time with "Jeem," "Frain," Mary Varner (she would never even try to say Mary Varner), and Janey.

This is not posed.  Minutes after exiting the tunnel in Mobile, Annie starting throwing up.  Over and over and over.  We pulled over in downtown Mobile, changed Annie's clothes and tried to clean her and the carseat up as well as you can with baby wipes and Lysol wipes.  It was pretty stinky for the last few hours of the trip.  We rolled the windows down for a while.  I felt like a dog with my nose sticking out the window.

Thursday

 Ben and John had a great time throwing the Frisbee.

 There were fewer flies right near the water so I bought this chair so that I could sit right at the edge of the water where the waves washed over my feet.

 John took this picture of me teaching Ben and Mollie how to ride waves.

 Thursday afternoon Jim, Fran, MV, and Janey joined us.  They rented a cabin for Thursday and Friday.

 Washing and cutting up (with plastic knives) vegetables for grilled kabobs.

 Making vegetable kabobs.

Required S'more eating picture.

Wednesday

Mollie was incredibly proud of this castle that she and I built.  The entrance was for crabs that might want to live in it.

 It rained Wednesday afternoon so we played card games in the trailer.  Once it stopped, we rode our bikes to "Flower Nose Lake."  We call it that because when Mollie was little she stuck a flower in her nose as we were riding back to our tent from the lake.

If you really zoomed a lot, you could see two deer on the bank near the water.  Mollie spotted them.

Tuesday

We loved camping in the trailer.  It was so nice to have a refrigerator and air conditioning.  We all slept great.  The kids probably thought John and I slept too well.  We would all be asleep by 10 and John and I would sleep until 8.  The kids would be in bed awake waiting for us to wake up.  I nearly came unglued one morning when Ben set his alarm clock for 7 a.m.

Although we had a perfectly good table and air conditioning inside, the kids preferred eating at the picnic table outside.  

Annie loved "playing dirt" at the camp site.  She spent most of the week looking like Pig Pen.

 As we headed to the beach the third morning we met a swarm of people leaving the beach talking about how terrible the flies were.  We had encountered the flies the previous days but with bug sprays and plenty of time in the water, we still had fun in spite of them.  However, we didn't even make it to the beach before they started biting us this morning.  We decided to go to the pool instead.

Everyone had fun playing in the pool with Daddy while I sat on the side and took pictures.  It was too cold for me.

 "Playing dirt."

 The flies usually weren't bad in the evenings, but on the third day only a few people decided to try.  For a while, we were the only people on the beach.

 John took this picture of me riding waves.

And then John rode some waves.

 Mollie was my helper and gave Annie her bath while I cooked supper.  Although the trailer only heats 6 gallons of water at a time and has a tiny bathtub/shower, we all bathed in the trailer rather than treking with all our gear to the bathhouse.

Clean girls hanging out in Ben's top bunk.

Monday

It took a long time to get to our favorite camping spot -- Topsail Hill Reserve State Park in Santa Rosa Beach, FL.  But thankfully, we didn't have any problems with the trailer.  We arrived about 4 p.m.  We set up the trailer then Annie and I went to the grocery store while John, Ben, and Mollie Grace made a quick trip to the beach.  I didn't take any pictures the first night.  We grilled hot dogs and made S'Mores.  After Annie took her first bite of S'More, she kept saying, "neck, neck."  When I took her inside to wash up, I discovered that the skin on her neck was stuck together with marshmallow.  

 This was the second evening.  I didn't take any pics the first morning.  Annie wasn't very excited about the beach until she discovered she could throw sand.

 Ben was punching the waves.

 Annie got pieces of chocolate and graham cracker after the first night.  I tried giving her a marshmallow but she cleaned her feet with it.

There wasn't a fire ring like at the tent sites so we bought this little fire pit at Wal-Mart so that we could roast hot dogs and marshmallows.  It's not camping unless you cook something over a fire on a stick!

Trailer

John took off for an entire week.  We don't think he's done this since we got married.  On Saturday, we packed the front and back of the truck completely full and headed to the camp where our travel trailer is parked.  The kids played with Nana and Grandaddy while John and I got the trailer ready for camping.

 Ben pretending to be a deer for the trail cam.  (Grandaddy sent me this pic.)

 The girls riding on the Mule with Nana and Grandaddy.

 Hooked up, bikes loaded, ready to go.

We stopped for lunch along the way.  We ate Hot-N-Ready Little Caesars in the trailer.