When Going to the Beach, Plan Your Menu Carefully...

So about our vacation...

My parents flew in on Saturday; we headed down to Corpus Christi Sunday. This was interesting. The first time away from home overnight with Cohen on his feeding pump. We rented a 3 bedroom condo on the beach - sorta. It was actually next to a private beach, but ya could still see the ocean and stuff so it still counts right? The condo had a nice pool/BBQ area with palm trees for shade and you could float and see the ocean at the same time, so you could at least imagine you were swimming in the ocean ;)

Hannah with her "boat"

Jenna telling a story...

Jenna still telling a story... :)

Cohen admiring cousin Josh's hair cuz he still doesn't have much of his own ;)

But we wanted some real ocean action, so we all drove down to the local beach, which was only a few blocks up from us. By all, I mean my cousin plus five kids, my SIL and son, my parents, my aunt plus husband, and me plus my other half and three kids. Back home, pre-journey, we had loaded up the back of the truck will all kinds of beach toy goodies, so the kids littered the beach with colorful plastic while we ran around trying to keep the cheap stuff from flying away! Is it always windy at the beach? 

The kids had fun, though. They played with an existing sand castle and splashed around in the water.

Workin on a castle fit for a princess

Jenna playing with cousins, who were very, very nice to her.

I was very impressed with how patient they were and how much they were willing to include her... that's sometimes rare to find in kids who don't understand...

The kids waded through the water, testing its depth (and their parents!) cuz you could walk so far out, you looked like a speck on the horizon, a bird flitting around on the waves...

See the speck way out there? That's Josh...

Jenna, enjoying the baby waves as they came in.

Which reminds me. The birds at the beach were insane! Literally. Maybe sippin the salt water or something ;)

I think they should seriously consider putting a sign up out there:

Birds Will Kill For Food.

So the stingy birds wanted our food and they had a preference, if you can believe that. Cheetos. Oh, yeah! They went ape-shit over them - oh wait, wrong animal... So anyways, the birds loved our Cheetos so much, they stole em from chewing mouths.

My cousin and her daughter both experienced the mouthy cheese-napping first-hand. Mom laughed, though she seemed a little shaken - daughter cried cuz it was darn scary (I think I woulda cried too...)

Want some Cheetos, Sherry?

Umm...Yeah...Thanks but no thanks!
I was not planning on touching the bag, much less the chips. :)

My SIL said it was like the movie The Birds, but I wouldn't know cuz I've never seen it.

Ummm...Cheeto-breath?

So anyways, we all had fun. The beach was really nice and the company was even better (MINUS the birds, of course!)

Reflecting on the day...

All in all, a fun time! We all arrived back at the condo tired, sandy, and a little sun-burnt (despite slathering on the sun screen), with a new loathing of greedy white beach-birds, but definitely happy we got the chance to romp around in the sand and experience the amazingly shallow ocean and sandy beach.

Hannah and her cousin - BFF after spending a few days together :)