What makes Nathan Jump for Joy?

A surprise birthday party trip to the beach with his favorite family in the whole world - the Ryan boys.

For Nathan's 4th birthday we packed up the car Thursday morning, drove to school and grabbed Ava, then proceed to slowly tell them where we were going during the 8 hour drive down to Litchfield, SC and the purdiest beaches on the East Coast (actually, really the only beach we've been too on the East Coast - FL doesn't count).

Ava was way too smart and guessed the surprise immediately, but Nathan was still confused after he opened the presents we had brought as clues - goggles, inner tube, beach toys and squirt sword things. He got pretty excited, finally, about 6 hours in to the drive.

Piggy Wiggly made a beautiful beach cake that added many pounds to all of our physique. We had to eat it all in 2 days, dang it.

Noah thought about paddling everyone but then decided he was out numbered. These poor kids are exhausted after a intense day at the beach and pool but we made them enjoy a birthday party. Ava may never forgive me for putting this picture of her up on the web. They were sunburnt, tired and ready to drop.

I especially was in the best mood after getting about 5 hours of sleep and realizing at 1:00am when we pulled into the resort that my bag (including all my swimsuits and all the bathroom stuff) was the only bag that didn't get packed. I spent 2 hours of quality time at the Goodwill and $27 dollars later I was good as new. Kinda. Here I am telling Jayme that she WILL eat WHATEVER kind of cake I put on her plate. I made the mistake of ordering a marble cake for 6 little kids that all wanted white cake.

Luckily the ice cream was white and well received.

And so were the presents - a beach creature set from the Ryans, a new space puzzle, a bouncy ball making kit, a football and color changing cars.

Nathan was having a tough time thinking he wanted to leave his old number 3 behind, but I think he decided it was more fun to be at the beach so he'll take the number 4.

If my computer had been more cooperative, I'd have posted more and told you more about this trip. For now, I'm dead and I'm at least 2 weeks behind - today is actually Lias's birthday but Nathan's finally getting his dues. And the wedding did happen, it was beautiful, I'm wading through 700 pictures from it and waiting for the good ones from the real photographer to post something. Good night!