Staycation Day 2 – Beach Day!

On Thursday morning all the kids woke up bright and early. Hailey and Holt were still on Texas time, so I didn’t expect them to sleep too late, regardless of how long the sleepover drug on. We had designated this day as our ‘beach day’. Unfortunately the ‘June gloom’ was still hanging around, so it didn’t look to be the best day to frolic in the sand and work on our tans. We piddled around most of the morning… made breakfast, drank our coffee, played, etc. We decided around 11:00 that we might as well make a go of it. We packed ourselves a picnic of peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, chips, cookies, juice boxes (and Diet Coke) and set out on our way. We chose this particular beach for a couple of reasons. First, the parking lot was right on the sand so we didn’t have to worry about walking too far with 7 kids in tow (scary thought, isn’t it???). Probably more important, there are restroom facilities right there, just steps from the sand… perfect for our small-bladdered, potty-trained, Holt. I wasn’t too nervous about taking all these kiddos to the beach with only the supervision of Kerri and I. The littles have been pretty good here recently. They are much more interested in playing in the sand and have shown very little interest in the water. I’m sure this will change soon, but for now I am very thankful!

Once we found our spot, we decided to start with lunch. You would have thought we hadn’t fed the small children in three days the way they were eating. Come to think of it, I don’t think the littles STOPPED eating the entire day. They found out what Cheetos Puffs are…. that bag didn’t last 15 minutes… then they moved on to the barbeque chips. Every time I turned around my trio of little orange people had their cheeks stuffed like squirrels. Kerri and I had to stop eating the chips as the bag somehow got sand in it and we just couldn’t deal with the grit. The littles, on the other hand, digested quite a bit of sand that day. We have made a bad habit of roaming meals here lately. For the record, roaming peanut butter & jelly sandwiches on the beach don’t work all that well. They would fall sandwich first, into the sand, pick themselves back up, and just continue eating. Gross, I know. We did toss the sand-sandwiches once we found them… it was just usually too late. Protein, right?

It wasn’t even 70 degrees when we got there. Kerri & I kept our jackets on the entire day. The big kids, Holt included, didn’t seem to mind the cool temperatures. They had a ball, in and out of the (COLD) water! How cute are they???

They spent quite a bit of time working on this ‘hole’. The littles decided that this was a pretty cool thing to do, so they joined right in.

The big kids became quite frustrated with the ‘babies’. They were trying to dig their hole deeper and deeper, but the trio kept jumping in it and throwing toy in it. It got so deep, they hit water… which made it even more fascinating for the littles. The big kids ended up aborting this hole and they went on to start another one somewhere else. They’re cool like that.

By this time, the tide was starting to come in, and I could just see the inevitable in my mind. I kept trying to drag all the shovels and buckets closer to our base camp, but there was no getting them away from it. Kerri and I were just sitting enjoying our view, when we both noticed a giant wave swell up. We were just thinking how amazingly cool it looked as it crashed onto the sand. What we hadn’t really considered was what would happen right after that… the gully-wash of water that raced up onto the shore, farther up onto the sand than it had been all day. Oops. We both flew up off of our perch and raced to get the littles out of their hole, that once was. A very nice man had already pulled one of them up and was chasing their buckets and shovels for them. Poor little guys were drenched, and scared to death, after being picked up and thrown face-first into the beach by the surge of water. Like I said…. OOPS.

We brought them back up to our spot and wrapped them up in towels. They were done with the ‘hole’ at that point, lol. Poor babies!

Did you notice the choo-choo wagon in the background? It won’t roll on the sand with 80+ pounds of kids in it, but it sure does make a great mode of transportation for all the beach gear.

Before we knew it, it was 4:30 and time for us to call it a day. We headed home to get all 7 kiddos bathed and fed for an early bedtime. After all, we had DISNEYLAND in the morning!!! Woot!