#298 - More Pictures from Crescent Beach

Here are the rest of the pictures from Crescent Beach.  On Thursday, we went into historic St. Augustine, where we did a bunch of the tourist things.  We toured the first Catholic church in America, which was really cool.  We took the boys to the Pirate museum, and as you would imagine, it was the hit of the day.  We walked down St. George street, and had lunch at the Colombia restaurant.  So good!

Friday, Mom came back down and spent the day (and night) with us.  Aunt Christy and Uncle Bobbie stopped by on their way back to Jacksonville.  And Aunt Debbie came for the afternoon.  We had so many visitors that week, and it made it very special.

Friday, we spent over 6 hours on the beach - walking up and down the beach, building sand castles, and playing in the water.  Owen spent most of that time throwing his new cast net.  It was the perfect way to spend the last day of our vacation.

We had such a wonderful time at Crescent Beach!  Such a great time, that we've already booked 2014! In fact, we have reserved 6 different units.  The Worths are going, Jen is going, the Whitelaws, and even the Tylutkis from Michigan (we hope)!  What a special blessing it will be to spend a week at the beach with all of our family and extended family.

Someone's in trouble...

In front of the Pirate Museum

Owen got hot walking around, so he asked for the umbrella....

Here's Owen getting ready to toss the cast net

And, there it goes!  Look at that pretty circle.

More throws.

Pulling back his catch

Benjamin didn't mind taking his nap on the beach

Playing in the pool with Nana

Earlier in the week, Lou, Owen and Grandfather went fishing

Grandfather and Owen

Splashing in the kiddie pool

The boys - Benjamin (2) and Owen (5)

My handsome son

Look how happy Benjamin was

Lou must have thrown those boys up in the air for an entire hour

They loved it!

I love that smile

More Daddy!

#297 - Crescent Beach, HAPPY BIRTHDAY OWEN!

Wednesday was an extra special day at the beach because it was Owen's BIRTHDAY!

Owen Luis Saez turned 5 years old.  Our big boy is 43 inches tall, and weighs 39.5 pounds.  He's a happy, outgoing child, who loves life.  He is a Daddy's boy;  he absolutely adores his father, looks up to him, and wants to do and be everything that Lou is.  He loves fishing, crabbing, soccer, and anything that involves water.  His favorite TV shows are Gator Boys, Call of the Wildman, Off the Hook and Top Hooker (a fishing competition, just to be clear).

Owen is the best big brother.  Although he can be a little rough with Benjamin, he just loves being with his little brother, or "buddy" as Owen likes to call him.  It's heartwarming to watch them play together and to see how Owen teaches his little buddy how to do things and also get into mischief.

Owen will be entering Kindergarten in a few weeks.  At school, he is more quiet and reserved, and very respectful of his teachers and classmates.  He's smart and patient, and has a real love of learning.  We can't wait to see how he grows and develops this year at Blessed Sacrament.

On Wednesday morning, Owen got an extra special treat - Grandfather, Grandmother, Nana and Pop Pop were all at the beach to wish him a happy birthday.  And, Kaylin had spent the night so she was there too.  (It was so cute to see their first sleepover together - they slept great on the pullout couch!)

Owen got to open his presents from Grandfather and Grandmother before they left to catch a plane back to Atlanta.  He was thrilled with his new boogy board and fish net!

In honor of Owen's birthday, we all went to the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine.  The Alligator Farm is a wonderful zoo, full of you guessed it - alligators, but also crocodiles, snakes, birds and monkeys.  This was a perfect activity for our little Gator Boy!

Owen, Kaylin and Benjamin

Our two Gator Boys

The gators were everywhere

The Saez Family circa 2013

Owen got to meet a real gator wrestler

Checking out the gators

Feeding the alligators

Daddy and his boys

After the Alligator Farm, we went back to the condo for lunch and birthday cake!  The cake was appropriately "fishing" themed, complete with a lake, boat, fisherman, and large mouthed bass.  Little guy was pretty excited when he saw it!

Nana and the birthday boy

Blowing out five candles!

Mommy and the boys

And, the entire family!

Time to open presents!  Here's a BSS jacket for school

Bocce Ball and Croquet set

He got a lot of other fun things like an alligator tooth necklace (which he hasn't stopped wearing), a book on reptiles, a box of dinosaurs, beach toys, a gym bag for school, candy and movie tickets (thanks Tita!).  But, the BIG gift was his very own cast net!  Owen has been asking for a cast net all summer long.  He's been watching videos on how to cast a net and catch bait or shrimp. The kid was pretty obsessed with it!  So, Lou got him a small cast net, and it absolutely amazed me how quickly he learned to throw it and catch things.  More pictures and a video on that coming soon!

Happy Birthday to our sweet Owen.  You bring so much joy to our lives, and we love you so very much.  

#296 - Crescent Beach

For more than 10 years, the Garces/Worth (and more) families travelled to Crescent Beach, Florida for an annual vacation at the beach.  Some of my earliest memories take place there, playing with Jenifer and Heidi and Joey and Holly and Alex and Becky all my other cousins and friends-that-are-so-close-they-might-as-well-be-cousins.  I don't know when we started going, but there are pictures of Jenifer in diapers on the beach, so it was at least the early 80s.  I think I was 14 the last year we went.  And, for the past 20 years, my cousins and I have often reminisced about those weeks at the beach, and promised that one of these days, we were going to restart the tradition.  I think this was the year.

It's tough to describe how meaningful it was to return to the Crescent Sandpiper with my husband and two children.  The Sandpiper looked the same, just newer.  The beach was bigger than my mind remembered, the pool smaller, and the beauty of the area more magnificent.  It exceeded my expectations.  And, to make it even more special, we celebrated Owen's 5th birthday while we were there!

Our unit was fantastic, and so conveniently located to the pool and beach.  Really nice with two small kids.  Although we were the only ones that rented a unit, I think the rest of the family was as eager to return as we were.  Over the course of the week, we had 19 different people in our condo!  (Jenifer, Kaylin, Aunt Kay, Uncle Joe, Little Joe, Maria, Baby Joey, Papa, Dad, Catherine, Mom, Leighton, Aunt Christy, Uncle Bobbie and Aunt Debbie, and the four of us)

I'm pretty sure the tradition has been restarted!

I've uploaded 75+ pictures, so I'll probably need to break this up into two posts, so here goes the picture recap:

This was our view out of our condo the first morning we woke up in Crescent Beach.  Just beautiful!

We had a great location - second unit from the end, on the ground floor.  It's the condo on the left in this picture.  Literally just steps from the pools and the beach.

Looking back at the condo from the beach on our first night there.  The setting sun was so pretty.

The evenings proved to be the very best time to be on the beach.  We had the entire beach to ourselves, and the weather was just perfect.  

Benjamin being goofy.  You'll notice that in many of the pictures he is not wearing pants.  It's because his bathing suits were giving him horrible rashes where they rubbed on his thighs, so we eventually just left them off him.

The two boys being boys

If there was a sand castle around, Benjamin insisted on stomping on it.

Me and the boys!

Our first day of visitors - Maria, Joe, Joey, Uncle Joe, Owen, Katie, Kaylin and Aunt Kay

The whole family after a day at the beach and in the pool with our sun-kissed cheeks

Benjamin (2), Joey (11 months), Owen (5) and Kaylin (5)

Grandmother and Grandfather flew down late Sunday night and stayed through Wednesday

Grandmother and Benjamin playing in the sand

Nothing beats a walk on the beach at sunset

Heather and Mike got the boys kites for their birthdays, and they were a huge hit!  We flew them most nights.

Stopping for a picture while flying the kite

Our handsome little 5 year old

Just beautiful

Hopping from hill to hill - being a boy

The pantless kite flyer

Goofing off in the pool

One of our traditions is to eat at O'Steen's restaurant.  Literally.... the best fried shrimp in the world.

At dinner

Papa came down from Jacksonville to help eat the shrimp.

Waiting on the bench.  Look at those squints - think they are related?  :-)

Lou, Katie, Benjamin, Papa, Owen, Grandfather, Jenifer, Kaylin and Grandmother

Papa with two of his grandchildren and three of his great-grandchildren

Benjamin being a stinker

Kaylin and Aunt Jenifer

Grandfather and Grandmother

Grandfather and Grandmother with Kaylin

Cousins....  seeing them play together this week reminded me so much of how little Joe and I used to play when we were their ages

An attempt to get a picture of the three of them.  It was harder than you could imagine.

My little guy

He caught the tail of the kite!

Takes my breath away

More to come....