John Lloyd Beach with Cousins

At the beginning of July, we met up with our Aunt and cousins for a fun day at the beach.  It is such a blessing to live so close to family.  Schedules are pretty crazy throughout the school year, so we don't get to see them as much as we all would love to, but when we do it's always a blast!  They invited us to join them at John Lloyd Beach which neither Dallas or I had ever been to.  It is located south of Fort Lauderdale right next to the main port.  John Lloyd Beach is a state park and protected from development.  There were beautiful mangrove trails and picnic areas throughout the park.  Since the emphasis is keeping it as "pure" as possible, there was much more sea weed along the beach than I prefer.  But it wasn't bad since the tide was so far out.  One of the things we loved most, though, was the chance to watch several massive cruise ships leave the port.  Daxton loved all the different boats and had a lot of fun waving to each of them as the sailed by.

When we arrived, Jackie and Thomas had already dug a big hole for Daxton to jump in and out of which was so sweet.  He was immediately best buddies and had a blast splashing in the water. 

It took all about ten minutes before Dallas and his cousins got into a crazy seaweed throwing fight.  I love watching Dallas relax and have fun with family.  It's been so much fun living by the Lovegrens and Dallas having the chance to get to know his cousins better.  They are seriously some of the coolest and talented kids!

It was pretty funny to watch Daxton's reaction to Dallas chasing everyone around.  He so wanted to join the big kids and tried keeping up with them.  He finally settled staying back with mommy so he could jump in the tiny waves.

We really enjoyed low tide at John Lloyd Beach.  The waves broke so far out that Daxton was able to walk into the ocean quite far before it got past his waist.  He had a lot of fun with daddy jumping over the oncoming waves and splashing like a fish.

At one point Daxton found a washed up coconut and started playing catch with it.  I have to admit that was pretty surreal watching my toddler play with a coconut in such a gorgeous environment.  I had to pinch myself.

As we were walking back to our chairs we nearly stepped on this little guy!

It was so funny to watch how excited Daxton got when we found the crab.  He reached down to pick it up several times so we had to have a lesson about that big claw!  I love the picture below.  It shows perfectly Daxton's curious nature and his excitement for discovering the world around him.

Proof that mommy was there too!

Since I'm usually the one taking all the pictures it makes me sad that we often have few pictures of me playing and interacting with Daxton.  Dallas was able to get a few of Daxton and I playing catch with the coconut we found.

It was such a fun day with family.
We live for warm beach days and fun family time!