Caleb's first twenty minutes at...

...the beach!

Following in our new tradition (established in 2008), we left Thursday evening for a weekend of celebrating our birthdays with "the gift of time together." The whole way down ~ or until she fell asleep anyway ~ Kylie was excitedly chatting to Caleb about, "the beach is so fun," "don't be scared of the waves, Daddy will keep you safe," and "there's LOTSA sand to play with!" I had to smile at her excitement and her commonality with me, ANY beach is my favorite place to be... True to our family fashion, we rolled in after 11pm and both kids were sacked out!

Friday morning Caleb woke up first and I went to get him for some snuggle time and to ensure that Ian and Kylie got to sleep in ~ we were on vacation after all! Even inside the house he was catching the background noise of the roar of the ocean and wanted to go out on the deck to check it out. Of course I took the camera out with me to capture his first glimpse of the ocean.

It's hard to muster up excitement when you are so freshly awake that your bed-head still stands...

As our sleepyhead family members continued to snooze, I kept him distracted by heading off the island to grocery shop. When we returned Caleb kept running to the windows and pointing to the water. Poor kid was trying so hard to be patient while Ian fixed us bacon and eggs... We finally finished eating, suiting up, and applying sunscreen and then it was time for the big moment!

**Note, this post focuses mostly on Caleb as for Kylie the beach is already established as "my favorite place." There are PLENTY more pictures to come (this ends on number 33 of the 255 I ended up keeping), but in order to break up the slew of pictures that I want to share, this post focuses on Caleb's initial reaction to being on the beach. Prepare yourself for extreme cuteness!**

Kylie had just yelled over her shoulder at me that, "Momma, you better hurry, Kay-ub won't slow down!"
Got to love that little mother instinct (made even more funny by the fact that she's got a mere 7 months on him!)
Apparently there was nothing to fear as he stopped at the FIRST sand he encountered...
...and then again about 10 feet later!
Kylie was so cute in her excitement to find the perfect place "to dig a swimmin' pool hole like we did last year!"
A recent storm had left a slight ridge during high tide and Caleb found it a glorious excuse to "park it" in the sand! Nothing like the feeling of sand between your toes and up your shorts...
Don't let his expression fool you, to the untrained eye he may look upset in this picture. Actually he was expressing his distress in the fact that there was "so much sand, so little time to handle it all!"

And then he realized that big sister was doing something cool, so he had to try a shovel too!
Finally about 20 minutes after we got outside, the ocean began to beckon my son with its siren call. It was like he had a realization that there was more than just sand to this mystical place that "Tie-yah" calls beach.

Just to see who's out there today, what do you think he did next? Did he answer the siren call, or did he have a healthy fear of the water as his sister had warned?