Our time at the ocean!!

(There's just so much symbolism in how Bryson's foot turned out compared to the rest.  I love it!)  :)

Ocean time was probably the favorite for everyone!  As much as I hate getting IN the ocean, I love watching it.  In fact, this chair below was where you could always find me sitting because I had a great view of the ocean waves out the window.  Zane and Bryson looked forward to playing in the water and Ashlyn enjoyed sitting on the sand with me building sandcastles.

 Zane and Bryson LOVE the ocean!!

 Every morning we would wake up, eat breakfast, and immediately get our swimsuits on.  Our hotel had a private boardwalk that went right to the ocean which made it so easy to get to:

Nothing could keep this boy out of the water.  The weather was amazing for playing outside, but the water was very cold!!  Bryson didn't care one bit!:

 The beach was really quiet and we loved that.  We would get out there some mornings and no one would be around except the occasional jogger.  So peaceful!!

Ashlyn and I spent all of our time digging in the sand and never went into the water.  That was perfect for us!

In our very first 5 minutes on our first day at the ocean, I was putting a shovelful of sand into the bucket and immediately screamed.  A huge clump of my sand was moving!  Zane thought it was hysterical that this disgusting LIVE crab was in my bucket:

If only I could have found a pretty creature like the starfish that Bryson and Zane found in the ocean:

I lied...Ashlyn did get in the water once.  But not on purpose.  She ran up to the edge of the water to ask Bryson to fill her bucket with water.  Right after she got up there, a huge wave hit the shore and knocked her down.  She face planted into the water.  She was freezing for a little while after that:

Zane and Bryson took some time to find us some really neat shells!

And notice the "Smore's" face looking at some of our shells:

Every once in a while Bryson would either come help us build or he'd sit on a towel and tell us that he needs to just rest for a minute:

Do you like what Ashlyn insisted on wearing?  She wouldn't take off her new Atlantic Beach t-shirt we had bought her the night before.  Silly girl!

Now this is one of my favorite parts of our time on the ocean.  Do you see what's out in the water and so close to the shore?:

If not, I'll zoom in for you:

How cool is that???  We saw so many dolphins and they were so close to us (you might have to click on some of the pictures to make them bigger)!:

On our last morning before heading home, we fed our leftover hamburger buns to the birds.  It started with 2-3 birds coming to eat:

 And it quickly became a ton of birds:

And then the sad time came when we had to change our clothes and leave for home.  But before our ride home we stopped at one more restaurant on the water.  We just had to try the food at Ruddy Duck Tavern.  We could smell their food a couple nights before when we were at another restaurant and we knew we'd love it.  It was really good!

This trip was definitely one of my all time favorites!  We had so much fun and the kids were so good!  I really hope we can have another vacation like this one again soon!!!