Birch Bay Part One: Fun on the Beach

The last week of July, the whole Bean side of the family went to Birch Bay for our annual family reunion. We stayed an entire week and had a fabulous time. All of Rick's siblings and their families were able to come up for at least part of the time. We also got to hang out with some extended family, which was also really great. Gwen had the time of her life being surrounded by her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

We spent quite a bit of time down on the beach. When it's lowtide, the beach goes out really far. It's fun to play on the beach and poke geoducks, look for shells, and find other crabs, sand dollars, and other sea life. Gwen really enjoyed digging in the sand and making castles.

Here are some photos taken while playing on the beach....

If you look closely, you can see that I poked at a geoduck with my toe and it squirted water at me.



Andy, Jessica, Rick and Gwen poked lots of geoducks. Sometimes they squirt a lot of water. You never know when you might get hit! It's all a part of the intrigue.

Gwen is crazy for Uncle Andy

On our designated sand castle day, it rained. That didn't stop us from going to the beach and making a castle. I made a small one with Gwen just to say we did it. There were a few troopers that braved the elements and made a real sand castle, but we didn't want to keep Gwen out in the rain that long.

Gwen loves her Aunt Jessica. In fact, she often says that when she has a baby, she will name it Jessica
Our sandcastle

We had a new addition to Birch Bay this year: Kirk's girlfriend, Whitney. We love her to death (possibly more than we do Kirk). We have our fingers crossed that he can trick her into staying around for a while.

Rick was sneaky and took a picture of them getting a kite ready to fly

Our last day at the beach was the most fun. We played sand baseball, soccer, and flew our kite. Gwen is getting independent enough that she was (mostly) happy just playing in the sand while we did our own playing.