A Little Blue Bucket

Matthew had to preach one Sunday down in Andalusia which is halfway between our house and the beach.  We decided to be "spontaneous" and head down to the gulf after he was done preaching.  We picked the closest beach which happened to be Ft. Walton, and it was actually very pretty.  Matthew's favorite part was the lack of teenagers.  This was the same week as Spring Break which was our only hesitation for going.  We found a public beach, changed clothes, and took to the sand.  Jacob hit the ground running, or at least trying to as we all know how difficult it is to walk on sand let alone run on it.  You will see one of the pictures above where he is looking down at his hand.  He fell over right at the very begining and was quite concerned about the sand that was on his hand.  He dusted it off though and went right back to what he was doing.  I think my favorite part of the day was when he actually saw the water.  Now, if you have heard him get excited about something then you might be able to imagine just what he sounded like.  With great excitement he said "a Wah-r" (a water).  Matthew took him to it but the closer he got, the more anxious he became.  Matthew tried to ease him into the gulf by sitting him on his knee.  The first picture you see Jacob is smiling.  All was going well until a wave came...and splashed him straight in the face.  That was all she wrote.  Jacob started to cry, Matthew started to laugh, and I just took pictures trying my best to capture what happened.  Matthew stood up with Jacob, and Jacob with a wave said, "bye wah-r."  We died laughing.  He had had enough and was ready to do something else.  Luckily that morning I had thought to pack his little blue bucket and shovel.  That proved to be the best decision I made all day.  He finally did warm up to the water as you can see in the other pictures, but he really prefered playing in the sand.We had an awesome time and I cannot wait to have more family beach trips (maybe more than just one day)!