Beach. Bum.

 

A few weeks ago we went with The Husband's family to the beach. Six adults. Two one year olds. Two three year olds. In one house.  I only thought I'd experienced chaos before this. Do you remember the monkeys' wild spree of destruction in Jumanji? That was us.  I suddenly knew what it'd be like to have two sets of twins. We determined that we may never get to relax on vacation again, or at least not for the next ten years. Here is a picture of the inside of our beach house after we'd been there 10 minutes.

The babies have just discovered volume. They particularly enjoyed screeching and squealing loudly at high pitches in response to one another.  At one point my sister-in-law said she felt like we were guests in a bird sanctuary. More like prisoners. Here they are having corn in a wagon, looking like a sweet little summer post card:

 

But most of the time it looked more like this: 

 One pulling and/or pushing, while the other spills something.

Family pictures on the beach were the best. We got everyone awake at the same time, moderately clean and in coordinated dress, and even within the same vicinity on the beach. That in itself was an effort of military proportion. Of course we could not guarantee that they'd actually be happy on top of all of that so some of the shots ended up like this:

 

We also ended up with several shots of the children looking at the camera, but adults wagging fingers and making threatening faces at them. In the end my favorite picture of the week turned out to be the impromptu, naked, wearing daddy's hat on the beach shot. I'm thinking this will be one for his senior yearbook.