Choosing Joy Today: Our ATEMPT at beach pictures

My sister-in-law & brother-in-law (Rebekah & Brian) were so generous to invite us to stay at their condo in Florida. I wanted to contribute something, so, of course, I thought, "What better way to commemorate our trip than with a big family photo of all of us on the beach?" Of course, I didn't have this thought until about a week before our vacation, in which I spent several hours looking at pictures online and seeing which of the photographers I liked wasn't already booked. Miraculously, I found a photographer that could do the pictures the Friday before we left at sunset. We checked with the family to see if everybody could do it. We thought it was a go. Thought being the key word! Poor Brian was only notified well after he'd been in Florida that he needed to be at the rehersal dinner for his little sister's wedding...the Friday before we left. The day we scheduled pictures. We still held out hope, though, because his family didn't tell him exactly what time to be there...until Friday afternoon. (Let's just say that Brian is very happily married & was not exactly sure about this wedding in the first place.) So, our 1st bummer is that our big family picture was without a big part of our family...Brian. This was a bad start. My boys wore white shirts & khaki and I found a lovely white Calvin Klein dress. Very picturesque....of course not for long, right? Just before we left I felt my hand get whacked by my dress. What? Oh, no they didn't......yes they did. THE BIG HONKIN' SECURITY TAG WAS LEFT ON MY CALVIN KLEIN DRESS! We didn't have time to do anything, but try to brush it out of the way! I'm sure the pictures will have a big, ugly plastic tag sticking out of them! SERIOUSLY! Then we get to the beach...Grayton Beach State Park, late, of course. The photographer was NOT the girl I talked to on the phone, but some guy instead. Another oops. He first had us stand in some area on the way to the beach. He pointed out some grass burs and said, "Oh, those are stickers. They'll hurt. Don't step on those." We've got 4 kids. Seriously?!? Sure enough, the stickers are embedded in the "safe" area as well. People are getting stuck. Noah melts down just because he's tired and hot. So I pop a blue M&M in his mouth. Big mistake. He spits the M&M into his hand after wiping it all over his face, and proceeds to smear it on his shirt & then Michael's shirt. We got out of the stickers & tried to take a few pictures near the beach but I'm pretty sure Noah was misreable and that my big, plastic tag on my dress was sticking out. Michael was livid, cursing under his breath. Alice started crying and refused to sit with the group. Noah melted down some more. Just a lovely time! We eventually found a sandcastle that was pretty cool. It looked like a birthday cake and had real sand dollars in it. Needless to say, our photo session did NOT go as planned. Maybe by some miracle something will have turned out. These are just a few of the snapshots I took throughout the mayhem. Sorry you don't get to see the lovely tag!