Our (short) vacation to the shore

Sunrise at the beach. Somehow it always looks better at the ocean. Greg Josh and I went for a walk Monday morning. It was definitely worth it.


Doing one of our favorite things to do on vacation . . . eating! Okay, so we do more than that, but that's probably what my mom would say when she's packing the food. However, just to show that we do more than eat, I'd better include a few more pictures.


I think someone added too much Bubble Bath to this pool! What can I say . . . some days you just get washed up. I can't remember if I rode this wave or if it rode me! The waves were pretty aggressive that day, so we did quite a bit of both. It seriously feels like you're in a blender when you get caught under one. I should know, that's how I dislocated my shoulder 5 years ago. This vacation was definitely better than that one!


After riding waves (and after Greg got pretty badly brushburned by one), we decided to have a sculpting contest. We had one the day before which featured cars, but I don't want to talk about that. Thankfully there was not a camera there that day. Let's just say cars were not my strong point! This time we decided to try boats, which were much more to my liking. We were smarter this time and built them next to an inland pool instead of on the oceans edge. We lost a couple cars like that the day before to rogue waves, much to the amusement of people who were walking past and stopping to see what we were doing. I guess they aren't used to seeing three full-grown guys making sand sculptures. (Well okay, to full grown guys and one little boy . . . a little boy who will kill me if he ever reads this!) These are the three boats we came up with. You'll never guess which one is mine! =)








As you can see from the back of this boat, we all had some breakdowns. Some more than others. I think Josh held the record with about five restarts! We all thought it was hilarious when someone else's sand collapsed -- only to hear them laugh twice as hard as ours did the same a few seconds later!


Greg, hard at work. This was his second attempt. His first attempt was significantly bigger, but it kept sinking on him. He made up for the small size by accessorizing with masts and sails.


After sand sculpting, we went back for one more dip in the ocean. We actually weren't planning to get very wet, but Josh had other plans . . .


After running right up behind us and splashing us, he repented and apologized. Well okay, we helped him with the repentance part a little bit =)


Did I ever mention my brothers step all over me? Nothing I like more than Greg's wet, sandy foot climbing all over me! lol Actually, if you saw what happened right after this, you would say Josh and I had the better part of this process. Greg lost his balance backwards and did a rather amazing head plant in the sand. Fortunately he didn't land completely on his head and it didn't really hurt him.


I managed to get up without doing a head plant. I was feeling pretty proud of myself, but this didn't last long. As you can see, Greg had to go and top me . . .


Actually, Greg was the only one who could do this because Josh and I are the only two close enough in height to make a stable platform. I have to admit, it's a cool picture though.


Mom and dad didn't want to do the pyramid picture for some reason . . . so they got one of the few "normal" pictures of the weekend =)


Last picture of the Stauffer guys at the beach. Unfortunately, Heather and Lindsey couldn't clear their schedules to make it down for this trip. It would have been more fun if they had, but they were keeping pretty busy at home and had some exciting times of their own! =) Thankfully, no one got hurt.

Overall, it was a very nice vacation. It was very last minute and involved very little planning, but sometimes those vacations are the most fun. Thankfully, everything worked out, despite a van that started leaking transmission fluid halfway down. God answered prayers and with a cautious driving strategy that involved multiple checkups and not going over 55 mph on the way home, everything worked out and we made it back home safely.