Beach Trip #2 and REAL BBQ #1

It was a hot weekend again. Even as I type at 9pm, we have all the windows/doors open, fans blowing, lights dim, and we're still hot. But it was perfect weather for going to beach. Camille, Bryan, Jeremy, and Meredith were all headed there so we joined them! Funny thing was, we went to HB and Eric and Laura weren't even in town. It felt odd to be there without them.
Mere is a fabulous aunt to all the kiddies and spends time playing with them. She helped Lucy build a little sandcastle fort:
Jeremy saw the fun....
And then everyone joined in!
Of course, the beach is never complete without someone being buried alive:
The beach weather was actually a little cooler than I expected (since we were there from 3-5:30) and the kids were so cold in the water. But of course they still wanted to play. Each time I asked Lucy if she wanted to get out, she would shiver through chattering teeth and reply, "no." We finally got her out of the cold and threw some towels around her. After a few minutes, the teeth stopped chattering. And she looked so cute in her new swimsuit cover-up:
Our beach experience was definitely better this time around than our first trip and mostly because we bought an umbrella! Woohoo. Owen was able to chill on a towel in the shade and it only blew away once (and landed on 3 girls who were laying-out on their towels. It was really funny)Other funny things that happened....this creature came out of the water trying to scare his children (it looked better when the seaweed was on his head) and this lady tried to shield the wind by sitting in this tiny tent. I mean, how ridiculous does she look? Mere made me take a picture of her:
We finished off the afternoon with our favorite summer past-time, ice cream from Rite Aid! This time they had the flavors I wanted. YummmmThe ice cream scooper guy offered to take our picture for us. We didn't decline.
And in the short 10 minutes we were there, Lucy started organizing all the cars from their display. She loves doing that with items. She'll sort her toys into colors, shapes, and similar groups. It's real cute. Casey's mom said he did the same thing when he was a kid:Dreamy:
Everyone enjoyed it. We learned that Lucy now needs a cone of her own since she loved ours so much. We'll add ice cream to the short list of things she'll eat!
Fun beach day with everyone.

And on Sunday, my mom asked if they could come up here to see us. Sure! How fun!
We set up chairs and a table on our back lawn and cooked hamburgers on the BBQ and it was so yummy. A BBQ is never is never official until you have guests over to enjoy it with you. So, I consider this our first REAL BBQ. It's more fun to have good conversation as you enjoy the summer evening:
Lucy got this little hat on Saturday and spent most of the evening wearing it and pulling it down over her eyes. Only Camille will appreciate this, but it reminds me of Carrie Martin with her baseball cap, standing against the lockers at school.And Owen was content being held by whoever was around and sucking on his fingers. What a cutie.
Thanks Mom, Dad, and Meredith for driving up here! We had a great time.