The Annual Florida Christmas Snow Man

There are tons of traditions at Christmas time. One that started somehow is that we go to the beach on Christmas to build a snowman out of sand. Some years we've been really into it and other years we're not. It's random people who go it seems, but everyone we know is always invited. It's difficult to build a vertical snow man out of crumbling powdery sand, so we've started letting the snow man be lazy like we are and we let him rest on his back.

Here are my brothers and dad just starting out
They decided they needed some sun, so off went their shirts
Dylan was busy burying his cute feet
Then he took off his shirt and went to work w/ the rest of the boys - so strong! Dylan didn't go last year, maybe it was too breezy or he stayed home for a nap or something. So this was his first year of really helping.

He helped pack the sand
This looks like snow to me, except there's a shirtless baby in the hole.
It's a challenge to get the whole snow man in the picture. Dylan was saying "uh oh" like they were going to fall
You can see their double decker shadow
Guess which silhouette is mine. One give away is that I'm one of the two holding a camera.

Handstand contests. I tried, but it's not fun kicking down from the hand stand b/c my leg muscles or whatever are already stretched enough.
Dylan is actually laughing here, although it looks like he's being tortured. Dylan tested the cool water
Matt actually went in. Look how calm and flat the water is. No surfing this year.
A Relaxing Christmas evening

Dylan really wanted to play w/ the big boys so bad. They let him play a little but Dylan started acting really tired when they didn't pass it to him. Then I realized that he hadn't had a nap ALL DAY LONG! It was sunset, and our Christmas had been so fun and he hadn't acted tired or cranky all day. I'm not good at keeping schedules.
Dylan pulled his blanket over his own head and fell right asleep on the way home.

2003 - me and Steven, my 4 Gille siblings and Mark

We did a Hawaiian snow girl w/ oranges as buttons.Matt flipped JT and Martin over then into the soft snowman as a landing padMartin is wearing the same shorts that JT is wearing in 2007.

(I don't know where 2004 pictures are)

2005 - just me and 2 of my brothers

The water's cold to me, but it's colder than that in other places around the world I guess. I've gone surfing on Christmas, but not since being pregnant and being a mom. Here's someone surfing on the left of the picture. I thought it was Matt, but he was on a mission.

back bend over the belly of the snowman. You can see my "Dylan tummy" poking out
snow angel2006 with ~12 of us in our extended family

my brothers doing hand stands

The sky is always amazing. I really should go to the beach a lot more often.