Sun, sand and smiles

We spent the weekend in Santa Cruz with my mom and her side of the family. I've said it before and I say it again - we are beach people. We belong at the beach, but our house and jobs haven't caught up with this line of thinking yet. We just love the beach, well at least Paul, Alex and I do. Amelia is still on the fence about it. Alex isn't thrilled about getting sandy but once his big cousins started running around he was all over it. Amelia however was not digging the sand and wanted nothing to do with it. She was okay as long as someone was holding her, but as soon as we tried to set her down on the sand she looked at us as if we had set her into a pit of snakes. After a little while she warmed up to the idea but as you see from the photo below, she was still making up her mind on whether she wants to be a beach baby!

Alex played so hard all weekend trying to keep up with his cousins who are almost 12 and 10. He had a blast building sand castles, digging holes and playing tackle football. My cousin's boys are such sweet kids and were quite gracious having Alex follow them around like a little shadow.

Getting to see my cousins and aunt is always great too. We hadn't seen them since our trip to Punta Cana this past March. Paul golfed with the guys and I caught up with Jessie and Ann. We all enjoyed some wine and good food, Jessie even busted out the magnum bottle of champagne she had gotten for her 21st birthday! Amelia was quite intrigued by it!

We had planned this beach trip several months ago but I had been dreading it a bit since Amelia doesn't travel long distances in the car very well. Alex is pretty easy, we just start up a DVD and he is good, but Amelia doesn't do DVD's yet and just wants out of her carseat the second she is put in it. We drove at night thinking she would sleep but she didn't....however it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and most importantly we arrived at point A and B safely!

We were all sad driving home last night but we can't be too sad, we are headed back to Santa Cruz in two weeks for the Wharf to Wharf run and a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium! Still, I miss that sea air already!