Pink Beach

All Isaac wanted for his birthday was to build sandcastles which was perfect since we were driving up from Auckland and then staying the next 3 days in a Beach/Golf resort.  Barb arranged for a picnic lunch for us so everything seemed perfect.  Boys all ready for sun and sand and fun in the waves.

I love that Isaac is carrying his bucket and shovel up and down the beach running from the waves.

And that Miles got himself in a little too deep for the tide and got soaked with his coat on.

The beach was beautiful, and perfect, and deserted.

And we had a lot of fun.

Even cutie Isla in her pink cover up which I never did take off since it was a whopping 70 degrees and windy.

Ready to build castles!!!

Unfortunately as fantastic as the beach was, it was unfortunately the wrong beach for building castles.  The beach is called Pink Beach because it really is pink and is made up entirely of minute pink, white, and black shells.  Isla matched the shells perfectly.

Isla was enthralled with them

But no castle building for the birthday boy.

Oh well, lunch was great.

And there were English games to play.

Rugby for Barbara and Isla who is her little prodigy (they're both the lone princess with 3 older brothers).

A perfect afternoon of family time.

Cricket.  Arty has pretty good form.

And beach/rock exploring.  Right on the beach there was this 200 foot rock formation that Barb and Clint climbed.

Hooray for zoom!

And for crazy people!

Miles and I were not as adventurous and instead decided to explore the caves and hold around the big rock.

Taylor however was very inspired by Barb and Clint.

So he climbed it too.

And found himself a New Zealand "Christmas Tree".  Apparently they're the only trees that bloom in December in New Zealand and the flowers are bright red.  Perfect for the holiday.

So he picked a few.

And brought them down for me.

Yep, that's me in a swim suit and cover up and a winter coat- cause it was just not warm enough in my opinion to not wear a coat.

The rest of the family scoured the tidal pools for star fish and crabs.

Again I love these vacations because of all the eyes and hands watching out for and helping my kids.

And then the truly crazy people went swimming in the very chilly water.  And I was very happy to let them take my kids along so I didn't have to.

Ethan is currently obsessed with giving thumbs up so expect to see him posing this way in most pictures.

They had a good time in the water.

While Isla and I hung out on the beach.  Of course this little 19 month old is obsessed with eating things so this trip also turned into diaper surprise every day.  Christmas day she successfully passed a handful of these beautiful pink shells which were not as beautiful on the flip side.

Grandpa rested his foot and kept Ezi warm and out of the sun while he watched all the fun.

A family game of cricket after the swim.

And warming up with our favorite aunt.  And though the sand castle building didn't work out I think it was actually one of our best days on the trip- lots of fun, family time in a beautiful place.