The beach: the ones that didn’t fit

And finally, two more of my favorite pictures that just couldn’t fit into the categories I came up with for the other posts.

In this one, of course, you can see both the sand on the eyebrow and the curls in the hair that I talked about in the “little things” category. But doesn’t it deserve to stand on its own?

And I just love this one. How she’s sitting, the sand on her feet, how you can see that cute little nose sticking out from under the hat… it’s perfect. Jacey’s perfect. Vacation was perfect.

Perfect.

The beach: the little things

These are the little things I never want to forget, the things I’m so glad I have pictures of.

The way her hair curls when it’s wet into perfect little ringlets.

How little her hat is, even though she seems so big.

The way she sticks her tongue out when she’s concentrating–which I used to get in trouble for during gymnastics when I was five years old.

How she despises having dirt or food or anything foreign on her hands, but doesn’t even notice sand on her eyebrow.

And, finally, I never, ever want to forget ruffled bottoms and dimpled hands.

The beach: collecting

Almost done, folks. I think there are three more posts from the beach pictures.

When you go to the beach, you just have to do some collecting. You collect seashells:

Even though at first you’re not quite sure what they are or what you’re supposed to do with them, and you’re a little bit wary of them and maybe even grossed out. So family shows you what to do.

And then you get the idea, and you start quite the little collection.

There’s something so special about dimpled little hands finding perfect little shells in the sand!

Then there was the OTHER thing we collected. It took quite a lot of preparation.

See those two kids there? One of them found this weird thing out in the waves. Kellen saw it, too, and ran back in for Jacey’s bucket, then ran back out to pick it up. We couldn’t figure out what it was, so we made it a pool to see if we could get it to swim. And we all crowded around and watched.

And there it is. It looked like a snail with no shell. It was folded over in layers like a rosebud. It was squishy like a jellyfish.

We never did see it swim, but we did see its eyes move. We finally let it go, and looked it up later when we had internet access. We decided it was a sea slug.

All in all, I think collecting the shells was much more picture-worthy!

The beach: the to-do list

Of course, while at the beach, Jacey Dae accomplished a good-sized list of beach to-dos that you just can’t pass up.

~ The first to-do, of course, was to set up camp. And it looked like we were literally going to camp there.

Think we had enough stuff?

~ Then, we could get to our list. Jacey chased birds.

Check it out- you can see the Goldfish cracker in the bird’s mouth!

~ She played with her sand toys.

~ She let little fish nibble at her feet. As long as we called them “baby fish,” they were cute and okay.

There are a couple in that picture, just to the right of her toes.

~ She played with wet sand.

~ And, of course, she buried her daddy.

He thinks this picture is gross.

Jacey certainly got lots of to-dos checked off her list in that one day at the beach!

The beach: the girl and her daddy

When a girl goes to the beach with her daddy, there are a few things she just has to do.

She has to eat lunch with him.

See why people say she looks like him?

He has to try to catch fish for her.

Can you see them? They’re camouflaged, but there are five right there around his fingers.

The bond between a girl and her daddy is pretty special, wherever they are.

The beach: the hippo

We gave her the hippo when we got out of the van and started piling our beach junk into the wagon. Yes, we had so much stuff we had to put it in the wagon. 4 full-size and 1 child-size beach chair, two beach umbrellas, two adult-size floats, a cooler, a beach bag, enough beach towels for everyone, sand toys… you get the idea. Anyway, we gave her the hippo…

and she wouldn’t let it go. She insisted on carrying it to the beach all by herself. That meant everybody else got to the beach long before Jacey and I did, but we didn’t mind.

Once we got in the water, Kellen took Jacey Dae and the hippo way out in the water so her feet could dangle.

Kellen, Jacey, and the hippo are the blob on the right. (The left-hand blob is my mom, floundering in the waves as they washed her into a sandbar on one of the adult-size floats. She couldn’t get up because the waves kept washing over her… it was pretty funny. Hi, Mimi!;)

I headed out to meet daddy and daughter.

And this is all I saw of Jacey Dae:

Don’t those look like happy eyes?

And even though sometimes the hippo left Jacey alone…

she always knew where he was! (Incidentally, no, Mimi wasn’t going to go float in that all by herself. She thought Jacey Dae was following!)

The beach: firsts

My very favorite thing about taking Jacey to the beach was all the firsts. We took her to the beach last year, of course, but she could barely walk–especially in sand–and she was just too young to enjoy it. This time, though, she would have stayed all day. All of the firsts led quickly to seconds and thirds, but I’ll always remember these firsts.

~The first steps on sand.

This first moment she stepped on sand, she fell down, surprised at its texture, and then got a little bit upset that it stuck to her hand. And then, when she got up, she forgot about her dirty hand and decided it was fun to walk in!

And she was off.

~ The first steps into open water.

I thought she’d be scared of the waves, like she was at the water park in SeaWorld. But she plowed right in with no hesitation. (Look at the color of our legs… why do you think my mother always insists on making fun of the color of my skin against Jacey’s? Is it really that different?:)

And she loved it, too.

~ The first time to play with sand toys.

It was uncanny. She walked into the water holding her sand toys, and immediately bent over to dig in the sand with her shovel and put it in her bucket. Nobody told her what to do. She hadn’t seen anybody else playing like that. She just knew.

~ The first time to jump waves.

I helped her jump two, and she just watched them come closer and closer and laughed as I pulled her up and over them. After that, she tried to jump them on her own… but, since she only got about two inches off the ocean floor, it was hard to catch a picture of it!

~ The first time to fly a kite.

There was almost no wind, so it would barely fly.

But she still loved to see it get even just a little bit above our heads!

She liked to “fly” it by herself. Can you see- she’s holding the spool all by herself. She would wave it around and giggle, never noticing that Kellen or I held the string to keep tension on the kite so it wouldn’t fall.

~

The firsts really were the best part of this trip. But there were so many other things to like, too…

The zoo: the experience

That little face says it all. Jacey is a zoo girl!

She certainly had the best ride in the park.

All of us adults wanted to be in that wagon with her, and we got so many compliments on our all-terrain wagon with its big ol’ wheels. She sat on a quilt, and her legs stretched out all the way in front of her. She loved walking, too, but she was pretty content to ride most of the time.

The absolute highlight of the trip, though, for her:

The Icee! Her daddy and mimi got a Coke Icee each, and she had a few sips. Then a few more. Then we decided to get her her own small, cherry Icee. And then up ran her daddy with a large one for her, just like the adults had! It was huge. And she drank every last drop. Almost without taking a breath.

Of course, the zoo brings good family time with parents…

and grandparents.

And, even though Jacey was one hot little girl, the zoo was, overall, a really good experience. A definitely to-do the next time you’re in Brownsville.

The zoo: the animals

Jacey Dae loved seeing the animals in the zoo. She would say what they were and say what they said, if she knew it.

Raaawww!

Or, really, more like, Zzzzzzz! It was stinkin’ hot so the animals were all asleep. The lions were asleep right up next to the window, and Jacey liked getting “close” to them with her daddy.

She kind of liked the fake lion, too.

Is that water fountain in every zoo in the country? I know there’s a picture of me drinking from one when I was little.

The animals I will never forget seeing are the kangaroos, which Jacey Dae insisted so vehemently were “dee!” or deer. I know you can’t see the animals very well here because it was so dark, but you can kind of tell–there was no glass or anything. They were just in a lower pit. So she could look right down and see them, and she was very intrigued.

And check out how well she blended in with the flamingos…

She wouldn’t agree that they were flamingos, though. They were simply “birds.”

And her very favorite animals:

Just look at that face!

Schlitterbahn

When we first got there, we had one excited little girl.

“Bee!” she kept saying, thinking we were at the beach.

We hopped in the lazy river and rode it around a few times. She loved it. She would have stayed in that river all day!

Her daddy and I liked watching her have so much fun.

After a few rides in the river and a picnic lunch, we headed over to the kids’ sandcastle-themed play area.

There were slides…

And more slides…

And even big kid slides!

Her favorite part was the “Ba!” which means “Whale!” and has been one of her favorite animals ever since we went to SeaWorld.

And she really enjoyed going up in the sandcastle…

Even if there was too much water pouring down sometimes.

And, at the end of the day, we’d all had fun… but were ready to get to the condo and take naps.

Of course, one of us didn’t wait until the condo for her nap!