Another Bumgarner Beach Week

{Update 5/20: I have not blogged in so long I don't know where to start, and I tried to start by telling about the sh!tstorm this spring has been, but then I decided that even though it has sucked, there have been some fun lovely things too, and I feel like thinking about that today instead. So, the brief version of the sucktastic: I got mono, Charlotte sliced her forehead open, a million things in our house broke, and and AND (longer version of the sucktastic can wait for another day). Here is something happy instead.} {Yes I said mono WHAT THE FRESH HELL.}

Bumgarner beach week, in happy pictures.

All the grandkids, post egg hunt. You cannot even imagine the shenanigans my dad was pulling behind the camera to make them all laugh like that.

All my kids wanted turns holding baby Sully.

Ashley's kids have the best facial expressions. I want to pull this picture of Sully out anytime I need to say "come at me brah." And from Liam, he is clearly saying "b!tch please."

Anneliese and I have cornered the market on excellent beach hair.

Look at all my sweet babies! (I made them stand like this because I have a photo of just Nathan and Anneliese like this and every time I walk up the stairs and see it on the wall it makes me sad that Charlotte isn't in it. Hey! I have three babies to look at the ocean together now!)

We don't love being up bright and early, but if we're going to be, it might as well be for the beach, right?

We take this picture every year, my dad with all the kids. This year everyone is happy, and is almost looking at the camera. (We have some years where everyone is crying. Which is funny. But this is better.) Someday I want to line them all up and we can watch the babies multiply. I remember when it was just Dad and Nathan!

Bumgarners on a beach! Ashley and I made everyone climb out of their beach chairs and smile for this picture; we flagged down a random passer-by to take it for us. They all roll their eyes at taking the pics, but some day they will thank us for having the pics. Oh they will. (Mark is still exhausted from the Salzburg incident of 2002, so I don't think he is ready to thank us for all our photo memory-making just yet, but he will get there.)

This has seriously become one of our favorite weeks every year. Dad and Cathy are so lovely to keep making this happen, and the kids just love running around and playing with each other. (Nathan and Anneliese barely know what to do with themselves on the rare occasions we are on a beach without their cousins.) It makes me feel warm and happy and fully of family nostalgia, even as it is happening. Even with mono.