Our First Family Vacation

We are blessed this week to join family in Florida for a little time away.  This is the kids first time to the beach and to meet some of their cousins.  They have been so excited I kept trying to find creative things to do to distract them from asking, "Beach, today?"  Angela and Jana enjoyed putting a few puzzles together on Saturday...

We told the kids Saturday night, "Church then beach."  They came into our bedroom at 7:00 AM Sunday morning dressed for church!  It was adorable.  We enjoyed a wonderful morning of worship... especially a message from Proverbs on our words.  As soon as "Papa" was done preaching the kids were like, "Ok, bye bye.  Beach!"  

They kids were great for our near 7 hour drive.  Their way of asking how much longer was, "More, beep beep?"  As we got closer we told them to look for water.  As soon as we pulled through the end of the Appalachicola forest into view of the Gulf, the kids screamed with excitement!  

After hugging the necks of cousins and such, we walked across the street to the beach.  We let the kids just jump in at 8:30 PM EST with their travel clothes on as the light of day began to fade.  WISH I'd had my camera to record the laughter and screams of joy!  Then it was time for baths and play dough with Papaw...

The living room is quite taken over with 10 kids sleeping...

I snuck a picture of Vica taking her nap...

Sweet cousins, Mercy Kaleab and Victoria Joy...

Family pool time...

In between swim time it was play dough time...

Or Nintendo for Beniam, James and the other boys...

Angela and Jana learned new tricks in the pool from their big cousin, Lauren...

Noah showing off his cool hair after swimming...

Auntie Lisa had the creative idea of creating fancy flip flops for the girls with balloons.  The girls had a blast.  The boys couldn't wait until we were done so they could create water balloons... ha ha ha...

Fancy feet...