Trip to the Beach, take 2.

Yesterday we tried a different beach. We knew that it supposed to rain, but only part of the afternoon, so we decided to take our chances. Also, we were going to a beach that the lifeguards didn't close when it was stormy. They just left instead of keeping people off the beach. The drive was about 45 minutes, but it was absolutely beautiful. Very green and lots of neat houses, tiny and huge. There were lots of sweet corn/ blackberry/ tomato/ live crab farmer stands.  Here are just a few pictures that I took on the way down.

Par for the course, as soon as we pulled into the parking, it started sprinkling. And as soon as we unloaded, it started raining hard. We decided to wait it out a little, and piled back into the car (much to Katy's dismay) to drive around and look at all the beach houses and splash our car through all the huge puddles on the tiny beachside roads. After about 15 or 20 minutes it mostly stopped raining and we gave it another try. It actually turned into a pretty sunny, nice afternoon (about 85º and not too humid, because of the breeze) and we had a really good time. The kids all enjoyed the sand and mostly liked the water, too. A few of the waves almost swept them away, but I don't think we had too many tears. Katy, especially, loved it. She is such a water baby. I even took her out in the waves a little bit, and she thought that was pretty cool. The water was a little less cold than I'm used to it being in California, and there was absolutely no seaweed or sea grasses in the water. I guess we have to watch our for jellyfish this time of year though. We only saw one little washed-up jelly blob, so apparently it wasn't a problem this time.
After about 20 minutes we realized it was clearing up and that we were going to stay, so we finally committed and applied sunscreen. Can I just say that sunscreen post-sand-exposure is not very much fun? Apparently everyone got plenty of coverage except Mommy. I guess I should have asked for help, because I missed a huge spot on my back and got a bright red souvenir. At least it was me and not any of the munchkins. We stayed about 2 hours I think, maybe more, and then headed home. Katy fell asleep after about 20 minutes, and I was even able to transfer her once we got home. That has only happened once or twice in the last 6 months, I'd say. She was pretty worn out. The older kids were already asking to go back today. :)

Thankfully she didn't eat much sand before she decided it was gross.

She finally figured out that she could crawl in the sand

Look at that sandy bum. I don't think I'll ever stop finding sand, even now
that we're home. It's everywhere...