never underestimate the power of a sucker.

 Wed night we headed to bud and alley's! The kids were a little restless in there. mccoy fell back out of his chair head first and caught the attention of the whole restaurant. thanks buddy! ;) then he threw his drink on the floor so i decided we needed to go outside to "cool off" well this was in the middle of a torrential downpour so we were a little damp for the rest of dindin. mccoy refused to touch any of his dinner so i felt like it was time to bring out the ole' dumdum sucker trick. i talkd them in to playing with cars behind my chair in the corner and that it was a game not to let anyone see them. phew. bought us a little time.
***btw--i will NEVER underestimate the power that a dumdum has on my children. that little piece of candy on a stick works miracles. god bless the dumdum.
anywho--we headed back to the playhouse to see if we could have shelter from the rain until it passed.
by this time we are all SOAKED! the kids loved it.

 liza heard a faint tune in the background and couldn't help herself

 mccoy is dripping from the rain. it is literally dripping off his chin and shorts at this point.

 of course, mccoy was being pulled by forces above to the deepest puddles in the area

 shhhh...is that music? it has gotten louder!!!!! 
5,6,7,8......and shake..

 and shake to the right

 now left..

 and , WHOA!!!!! did NOT see that comin.
so go ahead and do it.
do the elaine! lift that leg up!

 liza met SOOO many friends! everywhere we went, there were fast friendships made.

growing up when we went on vacations we always would laugh because somehow chip always made friends with people without us knowing and we would walk on the beach or into a restaurant and people would shout, "hey chip!" well, this is what liza was doing.
we walked onto the beach the next day and a group yelled, hey liza!!

 so this is when i knew that the night was ending... i thought...well look at all these fun colors! what a cute pic! ya'll get up there and act sweet and let me take your picture real fast...
well now...look who has a strong hold on her brothers hair. not cool.

 and it hurt! the look on her face, says...i had to do this...it was for the best. there will come a time when you understand why i had to do this.

 picture time, over.

 and so we did what any good parents would do...we rewarded them for acting like fools with ice cream.

 beach day 2

 mccoy would act like his sippy cup was a telescope and he would yell, arghhhhh pirates!!!! and point out in the ocean.

we went on a walk down the beach to look for seashells...
well on our way back, jason spotted a big one in the water so he went and put his foot on it cause he had mccoy on his shoulders. he yelled at liza and i to come get it out from under his foot. so liza was trying to get it without it going back into the ocean and jason was yelling to hurry, so i bent down and grabbed under the sand and pulled it up.....
that "shell" was the size of my face and PEENCHED me!!!!!!!! it was the biggest crab i had ever seen and i screamed so loud and maybe said a few bad words to jason because i thought he tricked me.
 liza said this was her favorite part of the whole trip.