Beach Babies

I bobbed about in the surf yesterday with my little flotilla of children in "floaties", and all was well in the world. The sun was hot on our faces, heads alternately warmed from the sun and cooled by the waves and breeze. The laughter of sand-covered, salt-sticky children echoed from the beach. Feet in the surf, the line of mothers on camp-chairs reached to the double-digits, and babies slept or fussed under umbrellas. Young men skimmed recklessly on wave boards across sands wet by receding waves, and young women bobbed like giggling message-filled bottles, moved to the shore by rolling of the sea.This was our day at the beach yesterday with a good showing of the mothers in our ward, future leaders in tow!

I definitely took too much stuff. Next time, it's me, the kids, the "floaties", one towel, hats and my chair. That's it! They were happy to run on the beach, exploring shells, flinging wet sand into the pounding surf, toss their shells with a 'plink' into the waves that washed up the beach, dig holes that quickly filled and melted back into an unbroken shore again, and ride the swells with mom. All that other stuff was just more to carry, more to clean, and more to fill with sand!

Even though I spent most of my time counting heads and worrying like a mother hen, it was a wonderful day. We filled the van with the requisite amount of sand, stopped for Slurpee's at 7-11, and watched the kids fall asleep damp and sticky in their car seats on the way home.

Once home, we unloaded mountains of wet, sandy towels, wet, sandy toys, wet, sandy children in wet-sandy shoes...into the house. Kids went straight to the tub to peel out of their sand-filled suits! A castle's worth of sand later, kids washed and dried, fed and settled down to watch a show, mom is hosing off beach toys, unloading the car, rinsing sandy shoes, and putting laundry through. I just want to take a nap!

The day was glorious, the sun and ocean the perfect temperatures, the company, heavenly. Looking forward to next week!