I took the kids to the Atlantic again yesterday to play with Julie and her girls. Three years in a row makes it a tradition, right? (2010, 2011) Too bad it will be our last with them.
We turned on our new Ralph S. Mouse audiobook collection and had a silent drive to the ocean, arriving to find a beautiful day and a full beach! The tide was coming in and the kids were excited. We found our friends, found a spot, found the water and enjoyed our day. It went by quickly.
Here are just a few of the photos I took. I take a lot of pictures. Have you noticed?
Into the ocean!
Lex LOVES the waves!
Think the goggles did any good in the waves?
Quintessential summertime picture! We need to get to the ocean more often.
Sail boats make me happy.
Happy girl.
Into the waves… face first!
They LOVED the sand this year too.
I like the look of turning the camera flash on at the beach. I’ll have to experiment with that some other day.
They really loved the sand! Eve said they were making themselves into cement people. :)
Chameleon kids. They could disappear in the sand!
I like this picture. Sometimes she looks so grown up, sometimes she seems like such a little girl still. Maybe it’s the hat.
Speaking of little girls! This sweet baby is growing up.
Buddies.
Molly eventually got into the sandy fun as well.
She’s living the good life!
I love this picture!
They make me smile. :)
Eve has so many different expressions!
The tide went out and suddenly we had a whole lot of beach to play on! Molly made a sidewalk to help us find our way from the blankets to the sand village we built.
Lex worked hard on building a sand castle.
Kate worked hard on filling the bucket and learning to walk on sand.
Lex and Kate, hard at work.
This pale boy ended up very red by the end of the day! It occurred to me, too late, that the spray sunscreen we used for his first coat was getting low and must not have had enough sunscreen coming out with the spray. Eve and I got a touch red, but we used lotion for both applications. Lex wanted spray for his first coat and I think that was the problem. Luckily he’s feeling much better today!
I drew a hopscotch board in the sand. The kids were surprised and excited. Molly is very good at hopscotch.
Lex is quite good as well.
I had a lovely picture in my brain with “Friends” and the date scrawled in the sand and four smiling children in a row. Lex loved the idea and got right to work making the word. His block letter weren’t quite what I had in mind, but cute anyway. Then I took a hundred pictures (plus or minus a few) and couldn’t get a single one with four kids looking in the same direction, never mind smiling! So here we are. Friends. :)
Look, Julie and I were there too! :)
After we did things my way Lex explained that he drew the boxes so each kid could sit in one around the word. Oh, ok. They all arranged themselves and I snapped a picture. Cute.
Then Lex said Molly and Kate were supposed to turn around so everyone was facing the same way. This was his vision all along and I have to say it’s the best group picture I got! Smart boy! Smiling kids. Happy friends!
On the way home the kids and I stopped to get pizza, then stopped an hour later to get some candy. (Which also seems to be a tradition if you read my 2001 post. The difference this time is that the kids knew exactly what kind of candy they wanted! I guess we’ve gotten a little lax with the sugar exposure lately!) We got home late, but made it through showers and bedtime with little fuss. Poor Lex was completely burnt and cried about that. I found some old aloe lotion in the cabinet that smelled ok and slathered it all over him. He said it helped. He is still red today but much more comfortable. Thankfully!
i love your beach posts. you outta go more often!
where is Julie going?