Florida Vacation - Ft Lauderdale

As soon as we saw the sign WELCOME TO FLORIDA, Mike and I were itching to get the kids to see their very first beach.  Honestly, I was a little nervous because the only experience they have had prior to this has been Lake Erie and they were less than impressed.

The kids LOVED the beach.  They were endlessly entertained.  We stayed with them in the water and they just ran, jumped, dug, built sand castles and had a ball.  

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Carter was so much more daring at the ocean than he is in the pool.  His favorite game at the beach was pretending to be a super hero and punching/kicking all the waves.

Ava hung out under the sunbrella to eat her lunch.  

Another thing we learned:  it is so much easier to take the kids to a picnic bench than it is to eat on a towel at the beach.  We would get their hands clean from sand and then they would immediately put them back into the sand.  Dawson's sandwich in particular was about 90% sand and 10% wich.  Unfortunately on this particular day there were no picnic tables available.

My little engineer checking out the sunbrella, making sure everything ok.

Brendan buried in the sand with his little cousin Dawson

Daddy had fun floating in the ocean

Of course Dawson wanted to be buried in the sand as well

Leave the camera to Mike and you get fifty two pictures of him or palm trees

Our first day was four hours at the beach, and they enjoyed every second.  Despite having to stay with them, being at the beach was a pretty relaxing outing because the kids were so entertained and had a great time.  Look at that dirty baby in his car seat.  We had to vacuum out the van on the first day!