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

First Day at the Beach

So, I'm holding Adam,trying to let him take a nap, while the rest of the crew is a block away, playing in the ocean.Doesn't sound fair, does it? Well, I had my ten minutes on the beach when I got here a couple hours ago, and I'm good for now. Anything bigger than a sandbox is too much beach for me. I can't take the ocean; I like playing in the waves. The only problem is that nasty, hot sand in between me and the water. So, I get to hold Adam while they all get sandy. I tried to lay him down, but after ten minutes he realized he was in a strange house and got upset. Try typing with a netbook on your knee and a baby on your belly. Thank goodness for the backspace button.

Poppop is snoring and Richard's dozing off. It's a good, sleepy Sunday afternoon. Hot as Hades outside...uhoh...I hear kids. They must be back from the beach. Going to wake up Adam, I'm sure. Hopefully it's just a bathroom break and they'll head back out.

Nope, here they come. I guess nap time over.

At the Beach

In between softball games, beaseball games, piano recitals, and traffic jams, we managed to squeeze in a few minutes with the Atlantic Ocean. Alex, Kenzie and I drove down Friday afternoon. We stayed in a condo in north Ocean City, only a few minutes away from the Delaware fields where the softball tournament was being held. This weekend also happened to be hot-rod weekend in OC. There were more souped up old cars around than anything else. I never got into those things, but obviously many poeple are hooked on the old, powerful, very noisy machines that suck up as much money as kids do. The OC police were very busy trying to control a situation where everyone seemed to want to show off their shiny metal babies.

Back to us. Friday afternoon, the three of us walked the beach, and Kenzie collected shells. Friday night, we walked the boardwalk. I love this time of year in the resort town. It's not quite open for the season, but there's enough to do and see to keep me entertained. The hot-rodders spend most of their time cruising up and down Coastal Highway, so the beach and boardwalk were essentially desserted.

On Saturday, softball ended early for us, so on Saturday afternoon we met one of the families from the team, who were staying nearby, and went to the beach. I couldn't let the kids show me up, so we all went swimming in the frigid Atlantic. It's amazing how cold that water was.

Also on Saturday afternoon, Vicki brought the rest of the crew down, after Connor's piano thing. She got caught in a ton of traffic trying to get there, and finally arrived after about 4 hours in the minivan. It should have taken less than 2 hours. She was a little upset. The kids, as usual, were pretty bad in the van, at least until they realized that they'd be sitting on the side of the road if they didn't shut up.

Our first game on Sunday was not until 2 pm so we had all morning to have fun. Naturally, we had go swimming again. I didn't go in as much as I did on Staurday. The tide was very low, so we could play on the sand bars. They won't be there in the summer, so that on of the cool things about swimming in the ocean this time of year. For some of our kids, this was their first look at the beach and the ocean. I think they had a good time.

The Weather Is Breaking

...and it is good. I think Spring is finally here, and the weather's been nice, except for all the rained out weekends. We took a walk to the beach the other day; the kids got to play in sand and get wet. I got them to sit still for a few seconds for some pictures. I was just missing one, since it was a school day. The joy of homeschool.