It's about time

OK so I thought it was probably time to create a family blog.
I was starting to feel a little left out. I love to see what my family is up to and all of the adorable pictures of my niece's and nephew's and I thought just maybe my family would want to see my adorable girls too!

Well,
We just returned from our trip to the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
It is close enough that we can drive there in less than a day and it less expensive than flying (although not by much now a days with the price of gas rapidly rising).
We always go with some friends of ours from Tennessee (Brian, Amy and Adam) and this year we added our friends the Martinez's (Antonio, Dede, Gabby, Chris and Josh).

The guys spent A LOT of time fishing on Brian's boat out in the ocean. But I can't complain too much since this year they actually provided us with some red fish for dinner. Yumm!!

I just bathed in the sun and enjoyed my time NOT working. The girls mostly played in the sand and made new friends with the neighbors next door.
We didn't get to do much swimming this year because the jelly fish were early this year. There were TONS of them. The first few days there were so many that you couldn't even get in without getting stung. You could literally stand at the waters edge and count them by the dozens.
Fortunately, the last few days they had cleared out for the most part. It took a lot to convince Madison to get in and it was pretty much over for Olivia. She was convinced that she would get stung if she got in (even though she watched me swim for over 30 min. with out incident).

Our friend Antonio caught a little sand shark from the shore and while trying to let it go, Brian got bit by it. For a small shark the bite was pretty bad. Not bad enough to get stitches or anything but it gives you an idea of what a big shark can do.






All in all, it was a good time. I wanted to stay a little longer but I think that no matter how long we stay that will always be the case.

We took tons of pictures, here are a few of my favorites (my camera is not as great as Christy and Leora's but it gets the job done).
Actually, Olivia did the majority of the photo taking. Since it is digital, I just let her go to town. She did a pretty good job and managed to even take a few of herself! There were two in particular that were so cute. One was of her own eyes and one of her feet. Somehow she managed to make them sepia tone, although they are a little blurry, they turned out really cute!!