Memorial Day Trip to the Beach

For Memorial Day weekend/week, we took some friends down to my parents beach house. We headed down in 3 separate shifts. Brindi and I, along with our babies started the journey Friday afternoon. Mind you, I've been going this route to Florida my entire life, but have yet to drive it myself. I have zero sense of direction and get lost going to the grocery store. But I was feeling good and confident and sure I would recognize my way. You see where this is going. So we're heading through down town Atlanta, stuck in holiday weekend getaway traffic. Our children are fussing already, and I HATE driving 85. HATE those big highways. They freak me out. So I pick the left lane and stick to it. We get through Atlanta incident free and are cruising our way to the Alabama border on 85. Or so I thought. About 2 1/2 hours in, I'm looking for my exit. (Don't know the exit number, just the name. Helpful). When all of the sudden, 75 and 475 split. !?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I had managed to get on 75 (NOOOOOO ONE told me 75 and 85 merge in Atl!!!!) and bring us to Macon. Um...yeah that's the OPPOSITE direction of Alabama. As if this trip wasn't going to be painful enough, I just added a good 2 hours on the journey. So my life-saving mother mapped us out a new route and we trek across Georgia heading for Columbus. A few hysterics, tears, fits and monsoons later, we fiiiiiiiiiiinally make it to the house. 9 1/2 hours people. Why do I have such traveling problems?!?!!? But we made it safe and sound and Brindi and Aiden, who were trusting me completely to get us there, were total troopers and didn't yell at me once.

The boys and Kristen get there late that night, and the Futrals meet up with us Saturday morning. Finally we're all together and ready for fun!! Too bad the forecast was rain for the entire week. Luckily we had good company, a Wii, movies and children to entertain us. But alas, the sun shone through for a few hours Saturday for us to go to the beach. Jack was terrified of the ocean and wouldn't go near it. He spent his time wondering the sand, pulling up little plants on the dunes. Hey, it was awesome letting him run a muck and get as messy as we wanted. And let me just tell you, this child was pooping sand for days. Too much info? Oh well.

Jack just lookin' handsome

He put that hat on himself. Here he is just wondering.

Matt and Kristen ready for some crab hunting. :)

Me and my hunka hunka burning love.

By day 2, Jack decided water wasn't so scary and became a complete kamikaze. He would run to the ocean, nothing holding him back. At the pool, he would run in ahead of me and be ready to jump. Didn't want to stay on the stairs or in my arms. He was ready to swim away. Too bad he can't swim!!! Anyway, weather ended up clearing up and we got a GORGEOUS day to celebrate our Memorial Day.

I didn't take many pictures, but here's one with a lot of the group minus Ryan and Matt. Brindi and Aiden are laying down, Futrals are above her and Kristen to the left.
Fun game of burying the golf ball...
...and digging out the golf ball. Exciting stuff.

We hit the beach and pool and ended our day with a BBQ feast. Our boys headed out around 5, to go back to life and work, but the girls stayed on for the rest of the week. Hooray!! We hit the outlets, ate ice cream, fudge, more ice cream, went to the pool, walked around Seaside, read and watched girl movies. In Seaside, this is how our children entertained themselves was by stomping and jumping on a metal plate that made a loud noise. Too cute! By the way, this is Tiffany's little girl Ainsley. She's two weeks younger than Jack and just a little angel! She's a good influence on my little monster.

It was so awesome getting to just spend time with our friends and not having to worry about getting home to put your baby to bed. Ya'll are awesome!!!