First Beach Weekend

I was so excited to finally be going down to the beach this weekend since it had started warming up. Despite my reluctance to the thought of wearing a bathing suit already, I packed it anyway and Ben, Harper, and I headed down to our family's Beach House. Momma and Daddy as well as Natalie, Stephen, Bennett, and Steele were already there when we arrived. Rachel and Hollis weren't able to make it due to KD Formal being Friday night, so they were greatly missed!

My dad's birthday is next Wed, April 16th, and it always seemed as though his birthday was a time of the year that things were always so busy or we were off to school and never really got to "celebrate" his birthdays. It's hard to get together on week nights these days, so this year we girls worked up a plan to surprise him. All of us were running around "getting ready" while daddy say on the couch thinking it was just another relaxing evening at home with momma cooking us dinner. Then at 6, we brought out the birthday gifts! It was really fun to surprise him, because we NEVER get anything past this man! He will guess any Christmas present before touching it, or just knows what is going on every step of the way because things are always planned. He said he hadn't even thought about his birthday coming up, so we definitely caught him off guard. Nat and Steve, Ben and I got Daddy a new grill to use on the new boat! It has a mount for it to stick into the rod holder and we can have a cookout while out fishing! Luckily, he loved it and I think we will ALL enjoy having it!

Then, we informed him that he needed to change his attire. "why?" he asked of course. Momma made sure he was correctly dressed as we all finished getting ready and then we were off! When we pulled up at the Villagio Restaurant at the Wharf he was definitely pleased. It is a really nice restaurant that momma and daddy have gone to several times and enjoy. So we all had a fun birthday dinner. Bennett chilled out in his car seat the whole time and was such a good boy! (the pics of all of us were on Momma's camera, so I'll have to get those from her).

When we got back to the house, the surprises continued with one of Momma's famous Carrot Cakes, candles, and a good ole round of "Happy Birthday to You!" Daddy of course was asking Momma, "when did you make this?" It was a fun night and such a joy to watch Daddy surprised by us for once! :) The rest of the weekend was quite relaxing, and there was no bathing suit due to the overcast/rainy day we had (thank goodness!). We even took the new boat out fishing... but the chilly winds turned it into a leisurely spin, not so much fishing involved. Harper and his half brother/cousin SteeleHarper sleeping on top of one of my parent's dogs' toys... nice pillow buddy