Beach Recap

So the thought crossed my mind this week that I never finished posting all of our pictures from the beach...so here's a quick summary of how the rest of our week went...

My SIL, Toni, is a park ranger in the upstate and had heard through her park ranger friends that during our time at the beach the loggerhead sea turtle nests were expected to start hatching and the rangers at Huntington State Park would have scheduled times were the public could watch them check the nests. There was a little mis-communication and we thought we would actually be seeing the little sweet sea turtles actually hatching and heading out to sea. We quickly ate our dinner on the night we had decided to go watch the sea turtles and raced out of the door and down to Huntington State Park...but this was as close as we got to any sea turtles....



Ruth Ann picked the last one up and held it tight while begging us to take it home...just kidding...what you're looking at is a model of what the sea turtles look like. The nest had hatched several days earlier and the rangers come back several days after they're sure the nest is empty to count the number of hatched and un-hatched eggs...



This ranger is putting the shell remains into groups of ten so she can do a quick count in the end. The nest had about 120 hatched eggs and only a few that didn't hatch so it was a success. We learned a little info about sea turtles and the most interesting quote from the evening was the ranger explaining just how little we actually know about sea turtles. The only time we get a glimpse into sea turtle activity is when they come ashore to lay their eggs. The analogy he made is to that of aliens coming to Earth to study humans but the only time they could study our activity is while women were in labor...yikes! Here is a picture of the very knowledgeable ranger with our very own family park ranger...I wish Toni had brought along her matching hat...maybe next year!



Huntington State Park is really a beautiful place...and yet another reminder of how lucky I am to live in such a fabulous state. Sometimes it's hard to imagine what the beaches looked like before they were filled with hotels and houses...this gives you an idea of the beaches prior to being populated...



We took advantage of some beach pictures without houses in the background and took a few family pictures...













Then we made the walk back down the beach...with the help of my mom and Toni we carried the double stroller out to the beach and pushed that thing to the nest they were checking that night...but here's why it's handy to bring along a few teenage boys for the walk back to the car...



The rest of the week was filled with beach times and nap times...

















And we tried to get a few evening beach pictures of our own...and I'm reminded once more how hard it is to get children to take a good picture and I'm thankful for a great professional photographer in my life!











I wanted to get one with Ruth Ann walking in the water with her dress...but it looks like my years of keeping her as clean as possible back fired on me and someone didn't want to get her dress wet...



Then we flew some kites Aunt Toni had brought...



And fought over the kites Aunt Toni had brought...





We also tried to get a family picture...possibly for the Christmas card this year...



Spencer brought a friend to the beach and his birthday was a few days after we left...and since I don't need much of an excuse to buy a birthday cake we had a little birthday party while we were there too...



And that wraps up the Beach Pictures of 2011...we're already booked for next year and can't wait!