Beach (and Animals) Summer Vacation!!!

I finally had the time to upload pictures and videos of all the fun I had on my summer vacation. Walk through it with me since I saw many puzzling things that I'm still not sure about and have tons of questions that you might be able to help me out with (since Mommy and Daddy are no help at all) ...

Avery and Mommy at the beach for sunset
after a very long car drive from home ...

... and the hotel room at the beach
was sooo much fun to play in ...

... but, first things first, a long planned out
outing at Sea World before any quality beach time!!!

Here's just some of the neat stuff I got to see at Sea world ...

... tons of dolphins doing all sorts of cool tricks ...

... and baby whales that can talk
(they can talk???) ...

... and something called starfish that don't
seem to swim around like any other fish I know ...

... and I'm not sure what kind of sea life
this was, but it looked very unique ...

... and huge colorful whales named Shamu
that perform crazy neat-o tricks ...

... including walking around out of
the water (huh?!?!?) ....

... yep, that Shamu guy/whale is
very talented indeed!!!

And then after tons and tons of fun at Sea World, we went to dinner where somehow Grandpa was there all of the sudden. I have no idea where he could have come from ... did he follow me on my vacation ... or was he hiding in the trunk all this time??? And if he was in the trunk, is Grandma also hiding in there??? This all seems so strange. Is it normal for Grandparents to follow their Grandchildren on vacation??!?!? Oh my ...

Avery and Mommy surprised by a visit from Grandpa

The next day was full out beach time ... or as I like to call it, "Total Fun in The Ultimate Sandbox"!!! Too bad Mommy and Daddy forgot to tell me about "The Scariest Thing in the World" that is right next to the beach, called The Ocean ... sure it seems all lovely and inviting at first with it's playful little waves splashing about and that calm cool mist in the air, but then after it surrounds you and starts to suck you back into those deep never-ending waters, that's just not what I like to call a fun time (maybe when I'm bigger and older, but not right now). Below is a video of my first moments experiencing the beach ...



... and as you can see, I fell in love with that scene until I got just a little bit closer ...

... Daddy helping to introduce Avery to the Ocean ...

... and Avery deciding it's much safer
up high in Daddy's arms!!!

Avery and Mommy starting to play in the sand
(at a safe distance from the Ocean) ...

... then Avery and Daddy digging deeper and deeper ...

... until Avery jumped in and wanted
Daddy to bury her!!!

Below is a video of what is now my favorite thing to do at the beach (except it would be nice to NOT get sand in my mouth every time I do it) ...




The next day we went to a quieter part of the beach called "The Bay" where the Ocean waters seemed a lot more friendlier to little peanuts like me.

Avery and Daddy looking for seashells
(and nice looking seaweed as well)

Avery, Mommy, and Daddy on a
sunset boat ride in the Bay

Even though I was on vacation, I just couldn't let myself get off track from my horse riding training, so Mommy found me a horse where I could log some decent hours on.

Avery practicing her riding

And would you believe the coincidence that my good friends Nick and Katherine were also on a beach vacation at the same time as me?!!?? We all agreed to meet up and play for awhile; and no, Nick was a perfect gentlemen this encounter and nothing became "accidentally" broken. And it seems that both of Nick's Grandma's followed him on his vacation and even one of Katherine's Grandmas as well, so I guess it's not sooo weird to have them tag along.

Avery with her friends Nick and Kathrine

Last photo-op at the beach

With half of our vacation completed, we then traveled North along the coast to a place where monsters use to roam the earth and unfortunately for them got sucked into tar pits (if you remember this blog entry, http://averyclaire.blogspot.com/2010/08/i-survived.html, below is the remains of one of those big guys that were in the picture of the tar pits), but fortunately for us, we get to see them rebuilt as "bone statues".

Avery and Mommy in front of an ancient
woolly mammoth from the tar pits

Avery enjoying the other rebuilt statue animals
(that were also stuck in the tar pits)

Then on our last leg of the trip, we stopped by to see a lot of the family that are lucky enough to live near the beach, one of them being Great Grandma Lucille. Below is a video of me playing with all of her fun breakable and really old toys ...

Avery and Mommy with Great Grandma Lucille

Avery playing with a really old looking
toy kitchen set that is totally amazing!!!

And like every visit, I get to see everyone else that lives around there too over at Great Uncle Rick and Great Auntie Sherry's house where I have tons of fun playing ball with the dogs, acting cute, making old fashioned ice cream, and playing with new toys. Here's a video of my new all time favorite toy right now ... she's my pretty pony Pinky ... thanks Cousin Danielle (FYI, don't worry about me, I'll start practicing right away to be ready for next year).

Thanks Mommy and Daddy for such
a great summer vacation!!!