Beach bums

It's official: we're beach bums! I think we've spent more time at the beach this year than we have over the last 5 years of marriage! Not that I'm complaining. It seemed sort of strange at first to fly up to Norfolk, VA and then drive down to the Outer Banks for a week... when we could drive just 45 minutes and be on the beach here in Tampa! But we'd travel any length to see our family and it was definitely worth it. Our families rented a house together in Corolla, NC, which is just about as far north as you can go in the Outer Banks. I loved it up there! It was far enough away from the crowds and yet still close enough to civilization so that we could go out to eat and play miniature golf! The beach is just beautiful there... white fluffy sand and blue-green water. Granted, the water wasn't as clear as the Tampa beaches, but the quality of the waves made up for that! I had forgotten how much I love playing in the ocean. We don't get to do that here since the water is more like a bathtub (I guess because we're in the Gulf) and mostly because we have Chase in our arms. Chase (and his parents) thoroughly enjoyed having his grandparents there all week to play with! We were able to spend hours out in the water... riding the waves, throwing the ball around or just goofing off with everyone else. I felt like such a kid again. Both grandmothers watched Chase while we went out to play golf one day and we even got to go for a few runs on the beach... the first time in a long time that we've run together without either the dogs or the baby! But overall we just enjoyed spending time with our parents and siblings (minus my sister who is 8 months pregnant). We played karaoke, cards, board games, Polish Golf, and hung out in the pool at our house. Fun times. I confess that I didn't take a lot of pictures... I think it was because the grandmothers had their cameras going full throttle and I figured that I'd just get copies of theirs. Here's what I got...

This is how Chase spent most of the week... sleeping on the beach in the shade of an umbrella!

Chase and "Mimi"

Chase and "G-ma"
In the pool on his whale float, looking like cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation in that hat!


With cousin Abbie

With "Papa"
Oh and our big news is that Chase started on solids yesterday! He ate some rice cereal and loved it! He kept trying to grab the spoon and shove everything in his mouth, so he ended up being a huge mess, but it was lots of fun!

The first bite:
I love it!!!