quick trip

This week, the kids and I took a quick trip to the beach to visit my parents.  My parents rented a beach house at the same beach we went to as a family for years and years.  It is one of my favorite beaches and about 2 hours away.  It is the perfect place for a quick get away.

Mark had to work so I took along one of our favorite babysitters, Emily.  During the trip Emily and I agreed that Mark should buy me a beach house for next summer and we would live there together with the kids and he could visit on weekends.  I've pitched this idea to him for about 10 years and has always shot it down.  But I'm hoping my persistence wears him down eventually, although now that I've thrown in a full time nanny I'm probably farther away from my goal than before.

The boys have really grown to love the beach.  We went every day for about 3 hours, which turned out to be the right amount of time for all of us.  Primarily because the house was almost a mile from the actually beach and it took two trips by car to lug all our crap stuff to set up our camp.  They love digging in the sand, jumping waves and even learned to body surf this trip. 

I have no idea what the three of them are doing in this picture.  But I'm so thankful that it was Emily they chose to play with like this and not me.  I was busy taking pictures care of Grace.

They also love the fact that they get ice cream every night at the beach!  But who wouldn't love that...

The beach has a trolley service that runs either every so often (I think it was every 15 minutes but I just can't recall the times) and it costs a quarter.  So the first night, we walked into town for our ice cream and decided to take the trolley home.  The trolley is open on the sides and the boys got such a kick out of riding it.  They begged to ride it the rest of our stay at the beach.

Even though she has not been mentioned much in this post, Grace was with us too.  I am in the process of writing up a separate post on her beach adventures but thought I'd include this super cute picture of my princess.

We had a really good time with my parents and the boys are already asking when we can go back to the beach.  Of course, since I want to live there, I'm ready to go back too.