Sand, sand and more sand

Our friends invited everyone down to the beach last weekend for a "Welcome Spring" bonfire.  Bonfires are always a great way for the kids to run around and have a blast and the parents to sit around and have a blast, drinking a beer and having some good food.  

I just don't know how my kids could have possibly brought pounds of sand into my minivan?

Ouch...more sand.

Luke with all the ladies, look at that happy smile.

Luke about to crazy jump again...more sand.

Ouch, more sand...

Addison and her best friend Tommy.  Lucky for us, our friends take to heart the phrase, "It takes a village..." and are all quite hands on with our little two year old terror.

Addison the smore monster.  Yelling for anyone to come help her, "Hands dirty!"

After the night before at the bonfire we did a hose down of the kids and left the mountain of sand in the bathtub because we were off to Horn Island.  First trip of the season and it was BEAUTIFUL!  Amelia and Addison showing off their snazzy new beach wear.

Luke and his buddy Boyd had so much fun together.  They never stopped running, jumping and swimming in the waves.  The other side of the island has the big waves so we walk over there to body surf but keep the boat tucked safely in this little cove.  We were lucky to see two families of dolphins swimming just behind our boat the whole time we were anchored.  One of the families had the cutest little baby dolphin, we couldn't get enough of watching them play.

Burying the Driggers kids in the sand.  Besides burying themselves in the sand, which certainly invites sand in some unwelcome places, the children body surfed the waves a lot on this excursion.  The boys especially kept asking an adult to walk them over to the wavy side of the island.  Well, they would body surf and then the wave would turn them over, flip them over, dunk them and deposit them on the shore.  (We were in water up to my knees, don't worry my readers, safety first).  Anyway, every few minutes Luke's swimsuit would start heading south and he would ask me to tighten the drawstring on it.  I did, repeatedly and then I thought, "what in the world, why do his shorts keep coming down?"  I then reached into both of his side pockets and his rear pocket and pulled out at least a cup and a half of sand from each pocket!  He's lucky he didn't sink, it was like having mini anchors in his shorts.  Amelia also needed to do some sand clean out of her swimsuit too after body surfing.  A girl's suit is a little harder to release the sand though so I had to take her suit off, turn it completely inside out and dig out all the sand.  While I did this, I just told her to swim behind the boat where no one could see her.  Let's just say I hope as she gets older, she is not quite as comfortable skinny dipping.  She swam around with a big smile, naked as a jaybird, singing a little song.  That girl cracks me up.  

For children of the 80's...doesn't Addison look like Drew Barrymore in Firestarter???  Creepy.   And yes, that is two inches thick  of white sunscreen on her face, a hat, sun glasses and sun protective shirt.  We don't mess around with the sun down here.  It was a fun weekend and as I keep coming across piles of sand throughout the house, Stephen keeps reminded me how much I wanted a beach house.  Be careful what you wish for my friends.