Vacation, part one

First of all, let me say that (a) beach pictures are what I believe to be the quintessential family photo and (b) I believe that one can never take enough of them. That said, I am totally disappointed in my beach pictures from this year for two reasons:  (1) most of them are blurry and (2) I didn't take enough, although now I know that even if I had taken a million they would all have been blurry.

I love wearing glasses. Well, unless I get it in my head that maybe I'd like to try contacts until I remember that the thought of touching my eyeball  in any way, shape or form is a disgusting proposition. I digress. While at the beach, I could not for the life of me figure out why I couldn't get the binoculars to focus on the birds I was watching (why, yes, I became a bit of a bird watcher while we were gone) until Dad told me to try without my glasses. Problem solved. And then a second problem reared its ugly head, unbeknownst to me until we got home and I transferred all my pictures to my computer.

Anyone who wears glasses of any sort to the beach can tell you that they pretty much become enveloped in some kind of grainy, greasy fog pretty much the instant you step out on the beach or even anywhere near the beach. So everything that you see is through this fog and thus is a little bit blurry. This means that when I looked at all of my pictures as I was taking them, I thought that the blurriness was caused by the fact that my glasses were dirty. But, alas, it wasn't just my glasses that were dirty but also my camera lens. Lesson learned. So long story short, all of my beach pictures are grainy and blurry. Boo.

Moving along.

This was my view in the quiet of the early mornings, with my best girl eating down below as I took these. Sorry about the screen getting in the way but I wasn't about to lug all of us out and down the stairs in search of a better photo vantage point. Still pretty, screen or not. It kind of makes up for the progressively earlier wakeup times that Laura provided over the course of our vacation. The early bird in her has really hung on. (This was also before the lens dirtiness set in.)

I'm including this picture for a few reasons: (1) Laura's giraffe print bathing suit. Really, does it get any cuter than that?  (2) Evidence of the blurry lens. (3) Also evidence that my father is half crazy. We had a six-passenger golf cart but Dad insisted on riding a bike everywhere. He actually kept up with the golf car and, on more than one occasion, beat us to our destination. If you've ever wondered where Will's boundless energy comes from, look no further than the upper left hand corner of this picture. (Also, if you're unfamiliar with it, we went to Bald Head Island, where the only modes of transportation are golf cart, bike, or foot.)

While Laura is generally a pleasant baby, this pretty much sums up her feelings about the beach. Her expression in almost every picture is the same, with the combination of pretty fierce winds, heat, sand, and sun sapping a little of her happy little self. Never fear, though, she still had fun, as it's virtually impossible not to be having fun with the extra attention of no less than five of your grandparents (one of those being her great-grandmother!) at the ready for your entire vacation. 

Will and Dad building an elaborate sand castle. Now Will is totally disappointed in his "dirt castles" that he attempts to build on his construction site here at home.

We're trying to get back into our normal home routine, back to reality. A reality that includes lots and lots of stuff to be done around here. (Sometimes I get the feeling that our house must require much more maintenance and work than is normal. Maybe I'm just feeling sorry for myself?) The diggers are back on our street and I'm hoping that this means that our sidewalks will be finished soon, thereby making our morning walks a little bit smoother. (Before you think our morning walks somehow make us health-conscious and very active, please consider that 90% of them end up at Starbucks.)

I have more beach pictures to share, lots of cousin and family pictures that I'm more disappointed in being blurry than anything else. And all of Laura's first beach experiences are seen through a fog. The saddest part of all is that my camera really does take good pictures, after you factor in moronic user error and all...

Happy Wednesday!

(PS. Blogger is doing something weird with the margins and spacing today. I'll try to fix it later. Sorry.)