Beach day

Yesterday afternoon I took my kids to the beach. They had never been to a beach where we live before (it's on a lake). They are used to Long Beach, New York where the husband's family has a beach house. For 3 summers in a row, we drove to New York and spent a week at this beach house bumming around.... hanging at the beach, renting movies, going to the park, the laundromat, basically just enjoying small town life a little with trips to Lawrence for shopping and dinner :)

Anyway, they have been asking to go back to the beach house, but my mother-in-law has been renting it out for the past 2 years and we have not been able to go. So, I decided to take them to the beach here. We had a really good time, but Alyssa is CRAZY!!!!!!!!



Alyssa was so excited to go into the water with Jessica, Emily and Will, she was running through the sand as fast as she could until her feet touched the ice cold water. After that I had no worries that she would run into the water. She had no interest in wading through ice water... not that I blame her. It was REALLY cold! Instead I had to make sure she wasn't running around stealing everyone's sand toys. Seriously, she kept taking this kid's white shovel and tried to steal a girl's toy boat. After a while I let her steal a few when nobody was looking... (I gave them back.) Oh, and she really loved chasing all the seagulls on the beach.






We tried to bury her in the sand so she would stay still for a few minutes, but she got out. We did have her stuck for a good 20 seconds though. And had a good laugh.



Emily on the other hand, was waist deep in the water having the time of her life.

Jessica went in up to her knees and Will jumped the small waves.





Oh, and apparently Will doesn't know what a seagull is because as we walked onto the beach he said, "Look, I see a chicken!" and later referred to it as a pigeon.

We built sand castles and then built more after Alyssa knocked them down...







And turned Emily into a mermaid...




Jon dropped off pizza for dinner on his way to the Cubs game. Food and sand just don't really mix as far as I'm concerned. But Alyssa didn't seem to mind that the food tasted a little crunchier than normal...





A great cage for Alyssa isn't it?



I had bought a kite for us to try since it was a windy day, and I was thinking of my friend Vicky who celebrates Kite Day in New Jersey, and the fact that I definitely don't know how to fly a kite, and that I wished she was there to help us. Well, I tried, but failed. Jessica ran the length of the beach, but failed. Emily tried and hit a man in the face..... Hahahahahaha. It was really funny, and I was far enough away to laugh before walking over and apologizing. Then these 2 boys wanted to try, and the second boy kinda took our kite away, and returned it all tangled, upon which I got yelled at by Jessica for letting a stranger use our things, and threw the kite in the garbage. So the kite wasn't much of a success, but now I do have the memory of Emily hitting that guy in the face with it... hee hee.

Anyway, on the way home we stopped for ice cream, brought everything in the house, got them all bathed, took a shower, put them to bed... and passed out on the couch!