Beach Vacation

You know summer's winding down when the county fair arrives. Alex took Connor and Kenzie down to Centreville to spend the day at the fair with friends. Tyler's in another karate camp, so I stayed home with the rest of the kids after I went food shopping. I used to like shopping for groceries but not any more. Eight gallons of milk. Ten loaves of bread. Every week. That, plus everything else needed to feed ten of us, gets expensive.

This is Ty getting his orange belt

Well, we survived the beach vacation. It wasn't as bad as I expected. Still too much sand at the beach for my taste, though. I wound up bringing Tyler home on Wednesday night of that week so he could go to karate class. That boy has really taken to karate. He earned his orange belt in about a month, and will probably advance to orange/strip in his second month. He's doing two karate camps this summer, and going to some extra classes, with the permission of his instructor, who seems to recognize Tyler's natural afinity for martial arts.

The family compound as seen from our house.

Capturing ghost crabs

Ok, back to the beach. The kids had a great time. They spent at least part of every day in the ocean or in the sand. And even a couple of evenings they got to explore the beach with flashlights. They were especially thrilled to discover the countless ghost crabs that came out at night. Every day we'd set up the tents. It looked kind of like a nomadic tent city sitting next to a huge oasis. All we needed was some camels.

Bekah in the waves.

Taylor running for his life

 

Almost looks easy once get past the breakers

When Ty and I returned to the beach after his karate class, we took the kayaks with us. I wanted to try them out in the ocean. It was pretty cool. Alex and I got to watch the sunrise from our boats. I'm really glad I don't have any pictures of my first two attempts at getting aboard the kayaks while the surf was knocking me over.

This is my ten minutes in the sand

Poppop

This family vacation was provided by Poppop. He actually found a house that was big enough to accomodate the whole extended family. He made some really great memories for his grandkids. They had a fantastic time.

Kenzie left her mark

Oh, and we also went parasailing