Beach Day 2 (May 11)

Our second sunny day at the beach was much the same as the first, except that we made better use of the shuttle and Andrew only had one meeting in the morning so he was able to join us a lot sooner.

This day really turned into our sand castle day. I think we were all still a little worn out (and sunburned) from playing so hard the day before, though we did eventually get in and do a lot of swimming and boogie boarding. Even Grandpa tried his hand at boogie boarding!

Here's Zoë dancing on the sand:

 

The tide was pretty low when we arrived, but we'd also learned from the previous day that we should just set up our stuff at the high tide mark. It takes 6 hours and 12.5 minutes for the tide to come in and we knew we'd be at the beach about that long.

Here's Phoebe dipping her toes in the Atlantic (with Rachel's assistance):

And here's a picture of me with Phoebe:

And here is Phoebe by herself:

Here are many, many pictures of us building sand castles:

Alexander wanted a tunnel going all the way under his sand castle. He dug quite a bit of it out by himself, but I also did quite a lot of the digging. We made it through to the other side eventually! 

Here I think you can see Rachel's fingers wiggling in the depths of the tunnel:

Poor Miriam's arms got so sunburned! We're not even sure how because I put sunscreen on her initially and then she reapplied sunscreen four or five times while we were at the beach! She was just lucky, I guess. Fortunately, I was able to keep the youngest four from burning very much at all. But Miriam and Rachel, Daddy and Grandpa all got burned quite a bit.

Here's Andrew greeting Phoebe after arriving at the beach:

On our first big beach day, we didn't have Andrew carrying anything to the beach. We thought walking back to the condo would be easier because we'd have him around to help carry things, but somehow it was worse! I don't know what made it that way...no one could remember what they'd carried to the beach and we must have been worn out because we all ended up feeling like we were carrying too much. 

This second day we had him carry another chair and a cooler full of cold things to the beach when he came, so I was a little worried about how it might be to get back to the condo, but it ended up being fine...at least for me.

The thing about the boardwalk shuttle is that it had a limited capacity. It simply couldn't fit very many riders or stuff, so every time we took the shuttle only part of our group could ride. I walked to the beach both mornings and home from the beach the first day, but I rode in the shuttle on the way home from the beach the second day and—let me tell you—it was nice!

I think Andrew ended up walking with Zoë and Benjamin while everyone else piled into the shuttle—four "big" people (me, Miriam, Rachel, and Grandpa) with two little riders (Phoebe and Alexander) on laps, plus a bunch of beach stuff. We were cruising along that boardwalk when we came up behind a group of pedestrians and had to slow down to let them all move to the side so we could go around them. 

As we pulled around them, and just before we sped off again, I cackled and said, "Bye, losers!"

The poor girl driving the shuttle gasped, her eyes bulging from shock. 

"It's okay," I said. "Those are my kids."

Funnily enough, when they caught up to us, Zoë and Benjamin accused Rachel of having said, "Bye, losers!" and it's just as well that they believe she was the one to say it because my poor example has led to my children liberally using the phrase "Bye, losers!"

Hopefully that will get old fast. In the meantime, so far it's always been said in good fun.

Here are Rachel and Miriam (minus Zoë) enjoying the surf with Daddy and Phoebe:

And here they are getting surprised by the surf:

Grandpa walked for what I'm sure amounted to miles and miles to help Phoebe settle down for a nap. As Daddy knows from his evening strolls with Phoebe, she really likes walking. Here they are zonked out together:

Here's Benjamin enjoying the hot sand after a cold dip in the water:

It felt so good to be warm that soon Benjamin was buried up to his head. And then Andrew joined him in being encased in sand: 

I honestly considered asking to be buried in the sand, myself, because the idea of being that warm was rather tempting. However, the idea of being that sandy quickly chased those thoughts from my mind.

Here's Miriam starting a sand castle close to the surf, once again intent on battling the tide:

She was alone out there for quite a while since everyone else was still enjoying the warm, dry sand. Here's Alexander with his legs in his tunnel:

And here's Andrew with enough sand on his face to rival Phoebe after a faceplant:

Grandpa and Phoebe still snoozing away:

Here's Rachel applying another layer of sunscreen to her part:

And here she is having decided that perhaps she'd be better off simply borrowing my hat for a while:

Now Miriam has Daddy, Zoë and Alexander down by the water with her:

Benjamin was still lolling around up by the sand dunes (but not on the sand dunes, of course):

He was joined by Alexander (who had had enough of the water):

Those boys were each in their own little worlds:

Meanwhile, down by the water:

Here's Phoebe pretending she played a big part in creating this sand castle:

I think they're all out there now...

I was stuck feeding Phoebe:

They worked on their castle for a long time and managed to keep the ocean at bay until one big wave did them in entirely—took their castle down to nothing in a single gulp:

Here's everyone drying off a bit:

Here's Zoë begging for one last snack before we go:

We stopped by the pool for a little dip on our way back to the condo again:

Did I mention that Phoebe learned that she could dip her arm in the water and then suck it out of her sleeve? She quite liked doing this. I think that last picture is her contemplating whether or not it was time to "recharge" her arm. I'm sure this practice is 100% sanitary.

Here's Benjamin and Zoë in the thick of some game or another:

Here's Alexander paddling around:

He stayed in his floatie for our entire vacation, but has been swimming without it at our community pool here. He's really getting to be quite a proficient little swimmer.

Here's Benjamin under a palmetto tree:

And, finally, here's Phoebe drying off after her swim: