Wamsted Crazy Beach Week: Treasure Hunt with Papa Ray

the wamsted crazy beach week was about 30 minutes from gulf shores where my dad and step mom live. my dad met us at the hangout, a big tourist place, for a pirates and princess breakfast. we had no idea what we were in for!

about mid way through eating, they announced that the treasure hunt was starting. of course the little girls weren't going to let their big sister go without them!

so my dad held down the ship table while we headed out on a treasure hunt. i could only understand about half of what this guy was saying. something about clues and searching for treasure and it must be here or wild goose chase over there!

finally we found the treasure! everyone got a bag of gold and all the girls got sparkly butterfly rings to go with their wands the princess had already bestowed on them and eye patches they tentatively accepted from the unintelligible pirate!!
and who knew they'd think those gold coins were the greatest thing ever! and what does one do when they get a bag full of gold coins? count them of course!

1...2...3...5...6...7...8...9...10! why yes!

*since then, we've been practicing counting. addie and i will count with anne perry and practically yell the number four before she can continue to five. so far...

1...2...3...5...6! yeah! 

Wamsted Crazy Beach Week: Shucking Corn

each night at the beach someone is in charge of dinner. there are enough couples/adult kids for each night but one. in the past, we've eaten leftovers, but there were no leftovers we could scrounge together for our kiddos this year. might have something to do with the big kid cousins. maybe ;o)

so between uncle ron and uncle dennis and ms gail, we had a shrimp peel feast along with fresh corn and a pull-everything-out-of-the-frig-throw-it-in kinda salad.

so a few of the big kid cousins were sent outside to shuck the corn. since addie was the oldest of the grandkid cousins, she got to stay up later and tag along with cousin graham (also known to her as raham) and cousin timmy!  cousin graham showed her how to peel the corn and pull all the strings off, and she was extraordinarily serious about her job! (no, that is not her drink sitting there!) then the other big kid cousins, travis and duncan, joined in! and between them and this little corn shucker...

the corn was clean in minutes!

Wamsted Crazy Beach Week: Reading

if there's one thing about Wamsteds, it's that they love to read.

books were started and finished at the beach. numerous books, the lengthy, tiny print kind; some by the same person!

and there was no shortage of big people to read to our many little people!

from the great grandparent generation...

to the grandparent/great aunt/uncle geneartion...


to the aunt/uncle mom/dad generation.

some of the oldest of first-cousins-once-removed...

to the oldest of the second generation of cousins-once-removed...

to the youngest of the cousins-once-removed...a mere 12 years older than our addie.

as i scrolled through these, it made me once again thankful for the many people who loved our girls well that week at the beach. we are so blessed to have generations of precious family on all sides of our families. i am so thankful our girls will grow up with such sweet memories of spending time with cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents. blessed. seriously blessed.

Wamsted Crazy Beach Week: Mine.Mine.Mine

Seagulls anyone?
We had some seriously stale chips, so Ms. Gail and Grandpa took the girls to feed the seagulls. (love. love. love this picture!)
It was so humid that my camera lenses, mirror and viewfinder kept fogging up!
But the birds weren't waiting!

Mine.Mine.Mine.
I'm not sure it cured anyone's mine-itis, but there were several happy little girls and a lot of happy seagulls by the time we left!

Wamsted Crazy Beach Week: Gametime

No Wamsted Crazy Beach Week is complete with out games.

This year, the game of choice: Boggle.

That is unless you're 3 or 4 and the game of choice would be Busy Town Memory!



...which some 2 year olds find utterly hilarious as well!

Wamsted Crazy Beach Week: the Fam

once upon a time, there were {four} siblings.
they grew up and got married and had these {nine} cousins.

and {three} of those nine cousins got married and by the summer of 2012 had these {six soon to be seven} new generation of cuties.
and every {year} or two, they all got together for a Crazy Wamsted Beach Week.

many of which i am sure a family picture was taken before my digital camera entered the family. except this year it didnt work out as planned when the camera only gave us 2 seconds to take the picture (do notice the twin in my right arm and all of those people laughing!!!)

so uncle jay attempted to save the day... and a change of lens at least got him in the picture! but then aunt jan, being the logical sibling that she is, just asked a neighboring vacationer (who was apparently laughing at our attempts and jokingly said he would be uploading a video of it to y0utube!) to press the shutter button for us instead of using the camera delay (all the while i was informing the younger cousins that it would be there job to chase after said stranger if he attempted to take off with my camera and tripod attached!)

and SUCCESS! 

it became a vacation tradition to take a picture of the {oldest} sibling (aka Grandpa) with his little darlings when there was only one, a mere {four} years ago.
and as the family grew, it became a little more challenging but still doable. until it was just down right impossible...but we kept taking pictures anyway because it's all about the memory. and this is the {2010} memory in all its glory! (pretty amazing how calm grandpa is!) then all of a sudden, something changed & all his little darlings decided it might just be ok to take a picture with Grandpa & Ms. Gail and they all lived happily ever after.