Life's a beach

Today I took the girls to the Fairhope beach.

I love that there are covered picnic tables.

And swings and see-saws for the kids to play on.

Gorgeous shade trees just off the sand.

There's a little creek along the walking trail.

And a white bridge crossing the creek.

And all kinds of birds:  ducks, geese, seagulls. 

We parked by two tall trees.

And then headed towards the sand.

Amazingly, I was able to carry our umbrella, diaper bag, beach bag, chair, Faith in her carseat, and a tall glass of water all in one trip.  Only because Grace was a big helper and carried her sand buckets and shovels and walked beside me.

It was gorgeous outside today and we had the beach all to ourselves.

Grace played in the sand by her baby sister for the longest time.  Faith just relaxed on the towel.

Then a pelican flew by.

And dropped a feather.

So Grace used it to tickle Faith's feet.

Faith is pretty ticklish!

Then Grace chased after some sea gulls.  She was trying to return the feather to the "burd-ee" (birdy).

The sea gulls eventually came back to visit us.  I think they were hoping for a handout.

Then Grace decided to go back and play in the sand.

She played by water and managed to get soaked.

We made Grace's footprints in the sand and then wrote her name above them.

And Grace tried writing in the sand, too.

Then Grace convinced me to put Faith's feet in the sand.

But Faith didn't enjoy it nearly as much as Grace did.

Our Mommy and daughter day at the beach was just the fun we needed.  We can hardly wait for our next trip!

A sick puppy

Poor Chloe.  She's sick.  We came home from church yesterday and saw bloody urine on the tile floor. 

So I called the vet and he said she has a urinary tract infection.  I took her in to see him this morning and he confirmed that she has a UTI.  He gave her a shot and me a bottle of liquid antibiotics to give to Chloe 3 times a day.  The vet said her infection was caused by her licking her hiney.  That's my fault because the last time I cut her hair, I practically shaved her bottom and it apparently itched thus leading to her constantly licking her bottom.  Apparently Chloe's "vulva" never fully dropped like most adult female dogs hence making her more prone to urinary tract infections.  The solution?  We need to wipe her bottom after she goes tinkle to keep it nice and dry.  Oh, and we shouldn't let her lick her bottom.  Unless we're willing to dry it afterwards. 

Catch of the day: running shrimp

We went out to the pier today to do a little fishing.

One of the first things we saw was this gator swimming in front of our pier.

Then this blue heron flew by.

It actually flew right over the gator.

Then the alligator disappeared under water.  I think he started stalking the heron but it flew off before it became dinner.

Meanwhile David tossed the cast net and caught a bunch of shrimp.

Apparently the shrimp were really running.  Every cast brought in dozens of keepers.

We caught this little guy in the net, too.  Do you see his teeth?  Good thing he's so tiny.  Otherwise I'd be afraid he'd bite off a finger!

A neighbor used the sharp toothed fish as bait and caught something really big!

It was a huge sting ray!  I only got part of him in the picture before he got off the line and swam away.

After about an hour and a half of fishing (shrimping really since we didn't bother with fishing poles) we came inside to wash and sort our bounty.

We sorted the shrimp in two categories:  coconut keepers (aka shrimp big enough to grill) and bait.

Our coconut keepers are huge!  Big as David's palm.

After sorting we had 8 bags for bait.

And 4 bags of keepers.  I estimate we caught a total of 12-15 pounds of shrimp in our hour and half at the pier.  What a great afternoon.

A Wii bit of family fun

This is one of our newest Wii games.

Grace gave it a shot.

And really got into.

I must admit that we are all quite addicted to our newest toy.  And this game in particular is very fun.  We also have Mario Cart and Mario Brothers.  I'm sure you can guess my favorite...

Birth announcements and portraits

I finally got around to mailing out birth announcements.

I made them myself.  I've decided that professional photographers are overrated.  I like the pictures I take just as much as any overpriced stranger at some studio would take...

This is the one I took of David holding Faith here at home using our chaise lounge for the background.

I covered our sofa with a white sheet and took these.

I love them in sepia.

I like them in color, too.

I especially like the pictures of all Faith's little details.

And I love this one where she's holding my finger.

I doubt we'll be going back to a portrait studio any time soon.