Summer Vacation

We had a FABULOUS vacation with my family down in Gulf Shores AL. We rented a place right on the beach and had a great time playing with all the kids and babies! There are four grandchildren on my side of the family now.

Ken decided it would be really fun to make some sand castles. And, when it comes to making creations, Ken goes all out. He did his research beforehand and I must say we were successful.

The first day, we did some test runs on some smaller castles



Ken and I went inside for 10 minutes to reapply the sun screen, and returned to the beach to see that an evil empire built a castle in the neighboring dunes of our castle. Matthew named it Castle Grey Skull:

We came to the beach the next day to see that our castle was destroyed by some punk kids, although Castle Grey Skull somehow managed to survive. So after a few does of recovering from the demoralization, we decided to go back to work on a castle. This one would not be so small....

Everyone working hard on making sand castles:


Yes, we put 4-year-old Vail to work- she happily ran up and down the beach, fetching us buckets of water. She had to go inside while we were still working and we missed our little worker.

The finished product!

This castle was modeled after Helm's deep from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers:



LOOK OUT!!!! A BIG UGLY ORC IS ATTACKING!!!!


The next day.......
I guess the tide came in :( We were disappointed but we would rather the ocean ruin our castle than some punk kids.

Here is a cool lightening shot Ken got. It rained for an hour or two just about every day. It was cool to watch the storms roll in and out.

All the men went deep sea fishing and, as you can see, they had a pretty successful trip! They got to bring the fish home so we could cook it up. I heard it was tasty....seafood really isn't my thing.


And some more fun pics:

All the grandkids



Hot Mommas!
What a great vacation!!!!