Beach Day!

James is off 3 days per week right now. We have decided to make one of those days our Saturday where do something fun as a family. This week we decided to hit the beach to run and play soccer! I was able to run about 3 miles or so along the coast. I can't believe I have never ran on the beach before. The beauty of the waves, the ocean breeze, and the clear sky- it was amazing and made the time fly by! I will be doing this again very soon. Maybe even on my birthday (see how much I liked it)! Our little exercise on the beach turned into 4 hours on the beach. We did not come prepared for that. I was a bad mommy and forgot the sunblock (Emma got her first sun burn. Fortunately it was not too bad). The kids didn't even have swim trunks. Fortunately we had lots of food- we never leave the house without food!

We have taken Emma to the beach before but she was too little to really care. She absolutely LOVED it this time! She loved digging in the sand, playing the water, and chasing all the doggies! The boys flew their new Angry Birds kites, ran with Dad, and found a whole bunch of Sand Dollars. Did you know that Sand Dollars are really just skeletons of Sea Urchins? I have never seen a live one in person but the boys and I researched it a bit when we got home. There are some neat pictures online. Savanna was content to run with me, play soccer, and sun bathe.

We then headed over to Shell Beach to the tide pools. There was a very low tide that day so a lot of the rocks that are usually submerged were exposed. The kids hunted around for sea life. We found this cool crab hanging out, a couple of starfish, and a bunch of little sea snails.

There are lots of places to rock climb here and several caves that you can crawl through. I thought James was going to have a heart attack as Brad started up some of these rocks. Brad insisted that I take pictures of him when he reached the top of each one! Of course his little shadow, Benjamin, had to follow him!!

April 4, 2012