Every Memorial day weekend we get together with our "Margarittaville" crew(we call it that b/c that is the house we use to stay in the first 7 yrs) and go to grayton beach from thursday to thursday. I look forward to this trip every year. There are about 30+ people who go ,and the # keeps growing:) It's like a big (huge) family trip. You come and go as you please, but we usually all hang out on the beach and play bocce or ladder ball. There is even a bocce tournament, and trophy. Do you remember the Gellar cup? from Friends? The bocce cup pretty much look as goofy as that!! Well anywho, that is neither here nor there. My point of this post is to tell you how we told this crew we were going to have a baby girl!!! 5.5 years ago we surprised this group during a blessing for dinner that sweet finn was on his way. Michael was saying the blessing, and at the end he said " ... and Lord please bless the baby that is in my wife's belly. amen." I think he nearly gave everyone in there a heart attack, they were all totally blindsided. When we found out Shands was going to be a boy, we had the ultrasound tech write down on a piece of paper what Shands was going to be and opened it that night with all of our friends at the pink and blue party. With Hollis Michael and I found out but kept it to ourselves so we could have a pink and blue party at the beach....

We started off with these. Whoever thought it was a boy chose blueberry, and girl strawberry.

Then it was up to the kids to reveal the verdict!! Finn was behind the decision of getting a parrot pinata. I thought a bottle or rattle might be a little more appropriate, but Finn helped me plan the party, so a parrot it was!!

Papa Al had to make a few adjustments to hurry on the process.

tada!!! A Girl it is!!! Peppermints were the closest to pink candy I could find. It took a little while to convince Finn he was actually having a sister. He is now full force and so excited. Shands... well I'm not certain what he thinks? I guess we will find out in about 10 weeks: