FUN IN THE SUN

Today was a public holiday (Labour Day). Kev had the day off and Madi is off for two weeks before the 4th term starts in school. We decided to go to the beach. After asking around at church yesterday we were told to try Newport Beach (no, not the one in California - that is the first thing that popped into my head when they told us to try the beach) because it was family friendly. We put in the coordinates and Sue took us right there - it took about 50 minutes [With only a couple of "Make a U-turn now! Make a U-turn now! Make a U-turn now!" I am not sure why it -- I mean Sue -- has to say it three times in a row, but she does. Just to make you feel good that you went the wrong way!] It was a good day. The water was a little cold [I think it was just right! It helped you to cool off after sitting on the hot beach. Of course I was the only one that would go all the way in.] - I am sure this warms up as the summer progresses.

Since we don't have our stuff [Something we are reminded of daily by Madz and Cooper.], and there are buckets and sand shovels coming, we improvised and brought two mop buckets, the big spoons we are renting in our kitchen set, some tupperware, and plastic bowl and cups we had bought at IKEA. They worked great! The kids had a good time building sand castles and digging in the sand. These are their creations!!

We had bought a beach umbrella for $5 a few weeks ago and brought it with us. There were umbrellas next to it that were more expensive, but being the cheap skates that we are we went for cheaper [What would you have done? A beach umbrella for $5 or a beach umbrella for $45? And the more expensive one didn't seem that much better than the one we bought. The material was just a little thicker.]. We now know that you need a more expensive umbrella to withstand the ocean breezes [Maybe we can find one for $15?]. It got blown away once and I had to chase it down the beach, a nice bloke [Look how well Stace is adapting to the lingo!] helped me put it back in the sand. (Kev was down at the water with the kids and missed the whole thing). It almost blew away about half a dozen times before it was blown inside out for the last time and one of the posts broke for good. It was left at the beach in the rubbish bin. We will have to invest in a better beach umbrella. The sun really is hotter here and can burn you much faster - we like to keep Rylee in the shade as much as possible.

Of course no trip to the beach would be complete without burying daddy in the sand. Madi wanted some of the action and had me bury her as well. Cooper, yes Cooper, also wanted to be buried in the sand, but I didn't catch him with the camera soon enough before he showed his super strength and got out. He thought the sand was cold and he didn't want to lay down, so Kev buried him sitting up. [I think he thought I was going to cover his head up too and got really nervous when I got to his chest so he asked me to stop. Can you believe he didn't trust me?]

We bought a boogie board at a garage sale a few weeks ago for $2 and Kev has been dying to try it out. He worked hard and got some good exercise riding the waves. [It was actually quite fun! I even caught one wave at about the right time and rode it for a couple of seconds before it capped and crashed on the front of my board. Needless to say I felt like I was in the washing machine for about 10 seconds trying to orient myself. I figured out that my problem is that I am not supposed to ride the waves straight! I am supposed to ride them at an angle! I am sure I knew that before today but for some reason I didn't get it down until my last ride. I am sure I will have more chances to catch a wave while we are here! Practice -- practice -- practice!] Madi tried the boogie board with help from Kev. She caught the wave after it came into shore and grabbing onto Kev's hand rode it down the steep incline to the ocean and then back up. [She had enough when a second wave came and hit the front of the board and sprayed her in the face. She didn't like that too much.]

[Stace neglected to share here 'Footie' story with you. There were a grassy area by some play ground equipment where we decided to eat lunch. Well, after we sat down, got everything situated, and started eating a couple of 'blokes' came up to play catch with a footie ball right next to us. The first time she got hit in the back! They were very nice and apologized. Stace got a little nervous and said, 'Maybe we should move!' I said, 'Do you really want to?' and she said no! It will be OK. Then she got hit on the top of the head. It wasn't that hard, since it had a couple of bounces before it hit her, and so it was kind of funny. I couldn't help but to snicker! Again she said that we should probably move, I asked if she really wanted to, and then she said no. I think she almost got hit one more time, after that they stopped playing and went somewhere else. I think it is just that magnetic personality Stace has that was apparently tuned in to balls instead of people today! Ha ha!]

[Nice picture of my 'LOVE HANDLES' Stace! Why did you have to pick that one for the blog? And look, I am almost as white as the wave cap in the back ground! Notice that Coop must get his whiteness from me!]

Madi ended the day by rolling in the sand after coming out of the ocean and ended up with sand everywhere. She didn't seem to mind until she couldn't get it out of her swimming suit. All in all we had a great day! It was fun to spend time as a family! We came back home tired and sun kissed. How fun to be so close to the beach! The worse thing about the beach is coming home and having to clean up the sand that gets everywhere. Even Rylee had sand everywhere and she spent most of her time under the umbrella in the car seat.

[The only other interesting thing that happened was when I had to take Cooper to the bathroom. The 'Man Toilet' -- I love that! -- was under renovation so they had a temporary toilet for the men in the parking lot by the park. I took Coop into the toilet and helped him get his suit down so he could go the bathroom (remember that wet suits are a little harder to pull down). I heard a thud and looked back to see that the wind had blown the bathroom door open so that I could see that a number of people were starring at the little boy with the bare bum about to go the bathroom! I closed the door and thought to myself how happy I was that Coop is still at the age where things like that don't even phase him!]