Miami Beach- the beach

Ever since our first vacation as a family- to Fort Myers Beach, Florida eight years ago, beach vacations have been the kids' favorite ones. One of our few non beach vacations included going to Disney World a few years ago. Alyssa was too young to remember Disney but Abby and Jacob do. Hands down, they've (Jacob and Abby) preferred every beach vacation over our Disney trip. I should add that the weather wasn't too great when we were at Disney- not Disney's fault- but I'm sure it contributed to the less than "magical" experience we had there. Although Alyssa doesn't remember Disney, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that she would prefer beach vacations to Disney if she could remember Disney. While at Disney, she refused to get her pictures taken with any princess who wore a poufy dress (the dresses scared her) and she wanted me to hold her the entire trip (she was four years old I believe- past the age when it's fairly normal to hold kids for hours on end :)).

The kids have loved fun pools at different places we've stayed and where we stayed this time had a great pool. But there's something about the ocean that no pool can replicate or compete with, really. For one thing, we have to travel far to get to an ocean so if we've been to an ocean, we've done some travelling to get there. Because we have to travel far to get to an ocean, we don't it that often and the infrequency helps make it special. Then there's the sand and the waves and the water. What can top it? 

I took about 750 pictures of our trip with my Nikon and another 75 with my phone. Of those photos, probably half of them are beach photos. Many of them didn't turn out great- weird focus, wonky eyes, etc. but many of them did. I won't post all of the good ones because, really, no one has time for that (except for me!!).

Here are some pictures of the girls with clothes on(!) walking/ playing along the shore line. I took all of these with my iPhone.

I took these next few pictures while on a walk with Abby one morning when the weather was super windy and overcast (for the most part). It wasn't really warm enough to be in the water right after breakfast (which is normally when we hit the pool or beach) so Abby and I went on a walk on the beach.