A Perfect Beach Day

We have not been good with getting to the beach this summer. Every time we have planned a day to go, the weather just hasn't been sunny enough or warm enough or dry enough. This was supposed to be a nice weekend, so we planned after church Sunday to head to the beach. We weren't sure how Niko and Jada would be at the beach, but we had no reason to worry. We were at the beach for almost 5 hours and no one complained, fought, whined. They barely asked for food, which is unusual!

They are all water rats and had so much fun in the waves. They dug in the sand.

We even discovered some of Rudy's friends from school, who were actually set up right next to us.

As the tide came in, the nice gully we had disappeared and the waves got a little rougher. But Rudy and Niko had so much fun riding the waves (and spending more time off their boogie boards than on)!
Rudy has the bright green/yellow shirt and Niko's is black with a blue stripe.

We left the beach around 6, dragging the kids away. We WILL get there more over the next few weeks!

The Arc Walk

Today was the annual Arc Walk. The weather was perfect.
N had to wear his shirt even though it was about 10 sizes too big.

 

 

And he added a hat to the outfit.

 

 

Once we got on the boardwalk, Rudy headed down to walk in the sand and explore the beach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul, N and I continued along the boardwalk.

 

 

Rudy found a catamaran to relax on while he waited for us.

 

As we headed back to the starting point, we stopped at the playground. N was sure he was supposed to climb this 'tree'/pole. He kept saying "help me, please."

 

We had some food, took some pictures in a photo booth, and hung out for a while. This was N's reaction to seeing ChaCha, the Rainforest Cafe's mascot, on the dance floor. (We had seen ChaCha while walking and when we came back, N just kept looking for him.)

 

N pretty much stalked ChaCha for the rest of the time, showing ChaCha his snake tattoo and the pictures we had taken.

 

A Day at the Beach (in Maryland)

This weekend's plans were originally to go camping at Asssateague. Unfortunately, a tropical storm headed up the coast with warnings of thunderstorms and lots of rain. So for the first time we had to cancel our camping trip. We still wanted to get together with our camping buddies, so we made plans to meet on Sunday at the beach at Elk Neck State Park (the site of our first camping trip) and hoped the weather would cooperate.

We arrived to warm weather but cloudy skies. But the clouds quickly passed and we had sun for the rest of the day.  Here is everyone taking a lunch break.
Paul and N

The family H.

The family G (two sitting, two in back).

Rudy ate and then ran back to play. He was digging holes and then discovered the little gullies that had been formed from recent rain.

Soon all the kids wanted to check them out (especially once they realized how warm the water was).

Then they followed the waterways to figure out where the gullies came from.

N had a great time in the water. Charlotte kept watch over him and played with him and was a great babysitter.

He also loved splashing with Chris.

Rudy was hard to photograph because he and Lily G spent most of their time way out in the water. (The nice thing about this beach is you can be out where the boats are in the back ground, and the water is still only up to the kids' chests.) On one of the forays out there, the kids found a live and a dead fish. Rudy brought the dead fish in to show every one and then buried it.

And prayed over it.

The "big kids"- Rudy, Lily and Lily had fun on the playground.

Some views of the beach from the top of the hill where the parking and bathrooms are.

It was a beautiful, fun day and well worth the two hour drive to get there!