View from the back balcony of our beach house
Misty sunrise pic Mark took--he got up for "dawn patrol" with his brothers and brother-in-law Emil, who brought a bunch of surfboards, and they went surfing every morning around 5:30.
Here is Avon Pier, a short walk away.
This was a Yoder reunion, and here are some Yoders! Mark with his parents, Frank and Kathy, his brothers Mike and David and sister Kathryn.
Kathy with Sky and Koda, who stayed with us. Koda is only a week older than Isabelle and they live in Florida, a few miles from the ocean. You know what she said? The Florida coast is LESS HUMID than where we were in NC.
It was super fun having two 13 month olds in a non-babyproofed house with a giant staircase!!!
Uncle James and Uncle Mike (who were housemates with us)
So, basically what happened on this day was that Mark and the kids went to the beach, and stayed out alllll day, and Mark and Madelyn got massive sunburns, and Luke and Madelyn got tossed around in the surf so much that they were all banged up and scraped and bedraggled. (They had various uncles out taking them out there with surf boards, boogie boards and kayaks.) This was rather unfortunate because Madelyn is a hyper-sensitive person anyway and the sunburn made her sort of grouchy the rest of the week.
By the time Luke came back and got cleaned up, he fell asleep around 6:30 pm and wouldn't wake up for 3-4 hours.
I spent the day in the house getting organized and helping Isabelle to sleep off her jet lag. I kept thinking that Mark would come back with the kids and then we'd all do something together, but that never happened.
But finally that evening, when the heat died down a little (I had no desire to sit outside in the heat all day anyway) me and my niece Sky decided to take the babies out to the beach.
Madelyn was ready for round two so she could collect more shells.
Isabelle, on the other hand, was like, "WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE??!" and tried to become one with the dunes.
In her defense, it was really powdery soft sand that was fun to squish around in. Nothing like California shores.
Here's her amused cousin Ben and uncles Mike and John.
She made sure to put handfuls of it on her head and down her back and everywhere in-between.
Madelyn was really in her element at the beach. She loves marine biology and shells and she was just in heaven all week.
Mark took the kids out looking for little ghost crabs that night by flashlight, they thought it was so cool.
(yes, I know my hair, lol)
Isabelle had the biggest meltdown of her life when it was time to go. Full body flails and screams! She must have really had a good time.
