Visit from Granny!

Such a great beach weekend last weekend - and we never actually made it to the water!  The best treat of the weekend was a visit from Granny on Saturday.  It was so much fun to just hang out and relax on the porch and catch up.  I can't believe it had been since Ella's birthday in April since we'd seen each other.  Where did the summer go?!  She got to see the girls in their element down at the beach house.  We set up the pool on the porch and they splashed around.  Ella has grown so much over the summer, seems like in the past 2 weeks really, but she was getting in and out of the pool by herself no problem.  She has especially grown since Granny saw her on her birthday!  During Granny's visit we even had a yummy pizza lunch from the newly found, #1 rated restaurant (according to our family at least) on Crystal Beach. 

I forgot to get a pic while Ella was still up, but here is a cute one of Granny and Addy on the porch.  Granny - you need to come down next time we are there so we can be sure to get a pic with Ella!!

In the past I was always worried about having enough to entertain the girls (and even Addy when she was an only) but have since learned my lesson - we leave a minimal number of toys down there, but the girls always find a way to entertain themselves, usually with no toys involved.  At the beach, a favorite activity is playing on the beds.  Jumping is not allowed, but they both just romp around on the beds and have a blast.  Obviously we have beds here at home, but there is something special about the ones at the beach I guess.  Now that Ella is bigger, wrestling on the beds is a new fun activity.  Here are the girls in their matching pjs, wresting on the bed

And this picture is just funny, so I have to include.  Sunday morning we were busy getting ready to leave, Michael was finishing up projects and our goal was to keep Ella awake until it was time to get in the car.  She was just sitting on the floor quietly for a while when I looked over and was afraid she was about to fall over, her eyes were 1/2 open and she was swaying a bit.  I put her on the couch and not 2 seconds after she laid down this was the scene

Dead asleep and she stayed that way until we put her in the car.  We usually judge the success of a beach weekend by how quickly the girls fall asleep on the way home.  I think that both girls were asleep by the time we turned off 87 after this past weekend!