life's a beach

i am sure all my faithful readers are on the edge of their seats waiting to hear from us. we made it! it was a long ride with 2 toddlers but we did it. we may never do it again...but we did it! only kidding :)

our journey began around 3:00 on friday...perfect timing to avoid all the downtown traffic. after 5 hours and only a couple screaming fits from miss lilly we arrived in brentwood, tennessee for the night. after a meltdown or two (from me) we all finally fell asleep...lil & i in one bed, dan & ry in the other.

as you can see, lil's ready to party while ry is ready to pass out.


after a somewhat decent night sleep, we were ready to go.




once we had some breakfast in our bellies we hit the road again. much to our surprise the sweeney's (who had also stayed the night just outside of nashville) were hot on our tails. they caught up with us just in time for a lunch break. ry was so excited to see her "best friend."





ahhhh peace & quiet.


after a chaotic stop at chick-fil-a we were back on the road only to find out dow, ne ne & ali were right behind us. we really could not have planned that better. we all arrived to the house within 1/2 hour of each other. the sweeney's arrived first and as soon as we got out of the car brendy runs over and says "hey guys, want to see my new house?" the kids were never so happy to see each other and to get out of the car!

after an evening stroll on the beach and some take out pizza we all hit the sack and woke up ready to play.




brendy is one cool dude


we really wore the kids out spending the entire morning on the beach. i am happy to report that we have not seen much oil at all. maybe a teeny tiny tar ball here and there but nothing to keep us from playing in the water. this is our set up on the beach for the week...


ry ry & her daddy...exactly where he should be. stay under that umbrella whitey.




the girls got some adorable new suits for the trip. target. on sale!! doesn't get much better than that. of course everything is cuter when it's personalized. thanks nina!!





getting some quality ne ne & dow time in. we are so so so happy to have ne ne & aunt nanny ali back in the usa!






such good penminship at such a young age...genius.





let's see...which one is italian and which one is irish?




filling up their buckets for the river ne ne & pat made












jamming to some disney tunes


burying dow


as you can see we are having a fabulous time down here. it is going to be extremely hard to go back to reality when we get home. so for now we're just going to enjoy our surroundings and each other! more pics to come....