Andros Family Beach Trip 2014, Part 2

Oldest and youngest Andros men!

We kept the door open quite a bit to let the fresh open breeze in.  Livy liked to escape to the porch and play with the shoes and scrounge up any sand available.

Later in the week, the sun finally came out, the wind stopped and we had a few gorgeous days.  

It made for playing in the water much more pleasant.

Most of the grandkids!

My twiners!

Livy didn't get to put her feet in the ocean for the first time until half way through the week.  (Yes, that is my BURNED RED scalp.  Don't worry- it is naturally red all the time and gets more red during the summer, even if I don't spend much time in the sun.  And yes, don't worry, every single person in the universe notices it and comments on it.  If I had a dollar...)

She would have went and swam in the water had I let her.

Eating sand= pure happiness!

We had 5 new people at the beach this year- 2 new babies and Nick's new bride Chelsea and her adorable little girls Avery and Halle.  We all love them so much and they are a perfect addition to our family!  No better way to get to know a new family than to go on vacation with all of them just 3 weeks after your wedding.

Chelsea's birthday was Thursday night of the beach.  She is gorgeous and doesn't look a day over 25, really.  We had a fun evening celebrating her.

Uncle Nick brought up his two paddles boards to the beach this year.  He just graduated from orthodontic school in Florida just a week before our trip, so his paddle boards made a great addition this year.  The kids loved it.  It was hard for them all to share just two boards!

Mitch was not brave enough to stand up.

Chloe was!

Go Lexi!

Livy knew just where to go to get the best snacks- Aunt Meredith!

KC, at it again!

 

Oh, this baby loved the sand.

She loved to eat it even more!

Our traditional bonfire on the beach.  We love that at this house, we can do it right in our own backyard.

Megan's best pose of the week, for sure!

A selfie with my sweetie!

Gorgeous sunset, atop the hill in our backyard.

So beautiful!

The adults set out to try a hamburger food truck one day for lunch.  We decided to all cram in one vehicle.  How many people can you fit in one 8 passenger mini-van (with one seat missing)?  9 adults and one baby, to be exact.

Chubby's was its name and massive burgers was its game.  It was fantastic.  Most of us got the one with fries and nacho cheese sauce IN the burger. 

We hit the tide pools on the rainiest day.  It doesn't really matter if it's rainy and overcast on tide pool day.

Livy was such a happy camper in her backpack.

 

Three cute 4 year old girls!

The 3 musketeers!

Mitch found the skeleton to some sort of sea creature.

And this is what Ben did with it.  

 Names in the sand!

Another fabulous year at the beach.  Until next time...

Andros Family Beach Trip 2014, Part 1

Our annual Andros Family Beach trip was August 9-16 this year.  We went to the same town and same house as last year, in Waldport, Oregon.

The first walk on the beach is always the most exciting for the kids!  We did it right as the sun was setting.  It was windy and cold but the kids loved it!

Ben, demonstrating his mad hand-stand skills!

The next day, Sunday, we went to the Waldport Branch just a few miles from our rental house.  We pretty much doubled the amount of people there.  This year we had 29 people!

Sweet baby Grant fell asleep during Sacrament meeting on his dad's chest.  Isn't he adorable?

After church, before anyone could get too homely looking, we decided to get some quick family photos on the beach.  (As quick as 16 will allow...)

Group shot of all 29 of us! 

The original 6 Andros kids!

Recreating a shot they took years ago, before anyone was married.

Papa and Nana- where it all started!

The 16 grandchildren!

All the girls spent lots of time this year doing spa treatments: manicures, pedicures, etc.  They did them on each other, and also enlisted any willing adult.

Nana's turn!

Chloe gave me a fabulous foot massage (after a nice foot soak), and then a pedicure.

Even Ben participated.  Real men get pedicures!

With Chloe's help, she and I decided to do something new and fun this year.  Before the beach, we bought some salt water taffy's (perfect for a beach theme, eh?) and filled a jar with them.  We counted the total amount, then let all the kids take a guess at how many were in the jar.  The closest one would win the entire jar.

  Here they all are, awaiting the results.

The guesses were hilarious.  Some of the kids changed their answer 4 or 5 times.

John was the big winner!  He was very sweet to share with everyone.

One of our favorite things about this beach house is the fabulous back yard.  It has a nice big deck, and then a huge sand and hill area where the kids spent hours just playing.  This year, they found a sled and took turns (not always so patiently), sledding down the hill.  Over, and over and over again.

How many boys can fit on one sled?

The big boys (adults) played a little baseball on the beach.  I'm pretty sure my love of baseball is rubbing off on Ben.  I love it!

With a 10 month old who still naps twice a day, Olivia didn't spend as much time at the beach as the other kids.  But when she was there, she quite enjoyed it.

The first few days were cold and WINDY!  When it's already a bit chilly, the wind is the killer.  Everyone was freezing this day!

Lexi attempted to stay warm, snuggled on Nana's lap.

KC is our master sandcastle builder.  He always comes up with something big and grand each year.

Just some proof that I was on this vacation- I'm usually the one behind the camera.  (Olivia loves frozen yogurts!)

This year, instead of doing the usual renting a crab boat, all the dads just bought a crabbing license and took the kids down right on the bay and crabbed just a steps from our house.  It saved everyone a chunk of money and was just as much fun.

And they could do it multiple times during the week, so we had fresh crab almost every day.

The kids loved it, even Cheetah Josh (a.k.a. Leah).  I even tried crab this year!  Can I get a woot woot??  That's a pretty big deal.  And it was not horrible.

On Monday night, Nana and Papa gave their annual Family Home Evening.  We talked about the importance of families.  We can never talk about the importance of families too much.

We all helped the kids make a family tree on the table of all of us.  Nana and Papa were at the top and each Andros child was underneath in birth order, with their spouses and kids below them.

Here's our crew.  Each adult brought a picture from the year 1991.  I was in first grade, 7 years old.  Ben was 14.  :)

For an activity, the kids all got to help break open a piñata.

You better believe it was pure chaos when that piñata broke open.

These two binky babies had lots of play time together on the family room floor.  They shared toys and even binkies back and forth!  Just 5 weeks apart, these two red headed sweeties.

More crab!

One afternoon, the kids and the dads went down to the beach to fly kites.  So much fun stuff to do at the beach!

Baby feeding time!  Victoria: 18 months, Grant: 9 months, Olivia: 10 months.

How do you keep 29 people happy?  Feed them good meals! 

We love our system of each family taking one night to cook.  Everything tastes fabulous at the beach!  Over the years, a lot of us have started cooking the same thing every year.  Beef stew, Brazillian beans and rice and lasagna are some of the staples.  Yum!