Congratulations Matt and Janee

My cousin Janee choose Rocky Point to finally get married to Matt.

Luke paid close attention to the ceremony.

Just cause you got to wear a white dress, don't go thinking that means I am going to let this happen to you anytime soon!

Levi and Noah only managed to sit still through the ceremony because they were promised iPhone games afterwards for good behavior.

Wedding pictures were taken...

Ack.  How long will it be before I am giving her away?  Time to clean the shotguns...

Making the stink-face...

The wedding pictures continued...

Dinner was served right on the porch, overlooking the beach.

Levi and Noah defeated many enemies in Infinity Blade, and as a result were very well distracted behaved the entire evening.

After dark, everyone released a bunch of "wish lanterns" which was pretty cool.

Even managed not to burn down Rocky Point in the process.

Congratulations Matt and Janee!

Our friends, the sea creatures

No trip to Rocky Point is complete without a visit to the local version of Sea World.  Only smaller, smellier, hotter, and somewhat less concerned about the well being of the animals.

But hey, after several years, this appears to be the same sea lion!

Feeding the sea turtles.

Checking out the "tide pool."

They named every creature they could see.  Interestingly, there was "Sucker"

"Crawly"

And best buds "Pinchy" and "Crabby"

At least I know they have a good descriptive vocabulary!

You think that thing is big enough?

For whatever reason, Rocky Point seems to be where all the Walcott clan males attempt things that probably shouldn't be attempted in a country with a sub-standard medical care system.  In the 30 some years we've been going there, I can recall "surfing" on car trailers being towed across the dunes, water balloon launchers at point blank range, stingray hunting close calls, potato guns, and far too many questionable fireworks exploding prematurely.

The last few years it has been a ginormous kitesurfing kite.  Cousin Jonathan found  a smokin' deal on ebay.  Turns out that it appears to have been a good deal because the thing is so huge that it is nearly uncontrollable.

Probably doesn't help that instead of being pulled gracefully across the waves on a kite surfing board (or having a clue what we are doing), we use it to get dragged around the beach like a bunch of grinning morons.

Having missed the last few years, I haven't had a chance to actually see this thing in action, although I've certainly heard about it.  It was literally dragging my cousins across the beach, no matter how hard they tried to stop.  A jump up, and you go sailing until you come back down again.

Now you'll notice that in the pictures above, my cousins are a bunch of fairly ripped guys.  I used to look like that a few short years ago, but sadly have to admit I am past my prime.  But while I may not share their toned physique, I figured that as the eldest cousin I had the... ahem... weight of my experience as an advantage.

In other words... too many Chipotle burritos would make me a much more effective anchor.

So after the assurance from Paige that she would wash my clothes if they got a little dirty, I strapped in.

Here I am demonstrating my anchor skills...

And then was promptly body slammed into the beach.  Kite went right and started really pulling, I thought it would hit the house, dug in my feet, and BANG.  Face first into the sand, feeling like a truck just hit me.

Maybe next year we should get an actual kite surfing board.  Just imagine the potential!

In hindsight... I'm kind of glad I didn't see that video prior to Mexico.  And that the harness that attaches you to the kit kept popping off of me...

Rocky Point or Bust

Ahhhhhhh, the annual family trip to Rocky Point.  Where each year I wonder how on earth we can possibly require this much stuff for a three day vacation...

Annual vacation, except we haven't made it there for the past two years, due to saving vacation time for the adoption.  So this year, last minute, since everything was finally complete, we decided to go.

To catch helpless sea creatures...

Maul helpless cousins...

Throw the biggest rocks we could wrestle into the ocean, just to see what they do...

Bask in the glory of a sandbox as far as the eye can see...

Seriously, that much sand and water is Luke's dream come true.

Flout typical rules of ettiquette...

And just have fun.

Ahhhhhh, Rocky Point.

It's really more about protecting them from themselves

Prtoecting them from crashing into each other.

From the full speed blind charges into me.

From falling headlong from their perch on my back.

From the embarassment this picture will cause them someday in their wedding video childhood picture montage.

And protecting their baby sister from flying gazoombas.

And probably a little bit of protecting her from dad.

 Either I am making funny faces at Sophie... or someone stepped on my sensitve bits. It's all about protecting those as well.

Think she will figure out that she didn't get into this family exactly the same way the rest of us did?  I'll try to protect her from anyone who wants to make an issue of that too...

All creachers and mamles ulowed

At the A,B,C Orfunige and the Elfebet Orfanige.

I supposed it's better than their usual stuffed animal games where every animal dies, and then its mother and father are sad.  But we might have to curtail the orfunige games when Sophie gets a little older...