We hit the road at 10:20 a.m. on Sunday morning - only 20 minutes behind schedule, amazingly enough!!

Tyler brought his trusty pal, "Pandy" along for the ride...






Evan had his fingers.....

and Maddy was asleep before we hit the gas station!!

She slept for the first hour and a half of the trip, which was nice. Unfortunately, the rest of the trip wasn't so pleasant for her.

Check-in seemed to go smoothly, until we actually got to the house. Turned out they had given us the wrong key. And the lockbox where the other two keys were supposed to be was not only not locked, it was empty. So we called immediately, and of course, the office was closed (it was just past 5:00 p.m. on Sunday). We called the "emergency cell phone number" where the message says that calls are answered "within" the hour. So apparently, no one actually keeps this emergency cell phone on their person. Someone finally called me back, about 40 minutes later, and then it was another 40 minutes waiting for him to arrive with the right key.


Here is a shot of the backside of the house.

I haven't taken a picture of the front, because frankly, it's not that impressive. The inside isn't so great either (I admit we've been spoiled in the past by some pretty spectacular houses). I've had lots of time to observe it's lack of greatness since we've been cooped up inside for most of the time so far. The weather has been horrendous with LOTS and LOTS of rain. We are here during possibly the worst week we could have picked out of the entire year.

So there has been lots of indoor activity.

Hanging with grandparents,

looking gorgeous,

eating Uncle Doug's famous french toast,

and sleeping.

We have had a couple of breaks from the rain and were able to hit the beach for some windy weather fun.

Today the boys all got kites.

And there was some chillaxin' in the sand,

and the surf.

And some fishing.

Poor Doug. The first day he went out to fish, a cop came buy and gave him a $160 ticket for not having a license. That's apparently a new thing in the last couple of years. No warning or anything, just BAM! $160 ticket. So today, he got a license. For $10.

Tomorrow is supposed to bring more rain - a couple of inches. Then (fingers crossed!!!!) Thursday-Sunday are supposed to be o.k. We'll see!!!