Some of My Favorite Beach Moments (or at least the ones I caught on film)

Leaving the beach is always hard. Waving good bye to an ocean that waves back, seeing the gigantic fountain in the pool in the rearview mirror, and watching the bike paths fade into the distance is always hard. It's a sign that we're leaving the dream world of no phone calls, knocks on the door, or places we have to be and going back to reality.

I love the beach because it forces the kids to play together. The boys play together every day but the two oldest are kind of phasing out of the "I have got to get outside NOW!" phase of childhood.  Watching Mackenzie help her brother find the best waves was priceless.

Sand is almost as fun as the waves. If I had the beach in my back yard, I might never see this guy.

They even learned to make their own beach furniture. Ah, doesn't that look relaxing? Nope, not to me either, but they loved it.

And this gal loved it all. The sand, the waves, the tidal pools all provided endless opportunities to find foreign objects and stick them in her mouth. Endless fun for her, vigilant watch for me.

Max and I took a little Mommy date to the beach one day. We built an awesome castle with a massive moat that fed itself from a river we dug from a tidal pool. Way cool.

If you click on the above picture, you'll see that while he put the finishing touches on the castle, I was writing our names in the sand. And yes, I wrote out Maximilian because he's going through a phase where he wants to use that all the time. He saw what I was doing and added his own message at the bottom, "I love Mama". Best Max date ever!

This site was especially sweet to me. He learned to ride his bike just a week or two before we came to the beach. This is the kid I thought might never walk or climb the stairs. Riding a bike wasn't even on my wish list for him. Look at him! Amazing!

A little Mancala pool side is always fun. This is where we spend the majority of the time. There is a giant pool, and hot tub the size of some back yard pools, a ping pong table, corn hole, and music. We came in only when it became necessary to eat.

Even Felicity got into the corn hole. Finally a game that involves putting things in something instead of taking them out. Now if we can just take that knowledge home.

We even got to hear pirate stories fireside while roasting marshmallows. This event just so happened to follow our pirate adventure. How great is that?

It was a great get away. Now we just have to hang on for Christmas break.