The one day

When we went to stay at the beach a few weeks ago while Joe was there for work, we actually spent one day at the beach. This is one of the posts where I could post some really cute pictures of the kids playing on the beach and one might conclude that a fabulous time was had by all. But that would be deceiving. The kids were grumpy from not getting enough sleep and bickering with each other all morning in the hotel room while I tried to get us ready to go. Then I had to hear the whining because they didn't want to go to beach and then once there, all they wanted to do was climb the rock jetties instead of playing in the sand and in the water.

It was kind of funny though. When we first got there I told Jadyn she looked like a beach bunny with her cover-up and sunglasses on and she proceeded to pose just like a bunny:

And then I bravely gave the camera over to Jake because with Joe at work all day, I wouldn't get to be in any pictures otherwise. Not a bad shot of me, although it would have been nice if Jadyn cooperated.

So after much coaxing, I convince the kids to just stick their feet in the water and run from the waves and after some warming up to it, they are FINALLY having fun at the beach. Imagine that? Then a lifeguard comes and tells me they are having major problems with stingrays on this side of the rock jetties and if we want to "swim" we are going to have to pack up and move because they were stinging people in ankle deep water. So I gather ALL of our stuff and we trudge to a safer area, but not without my back aching from carrying all of our beach gear and a lot of whiny whys and claims of being too tired to walk from the kids.

I have to say, once we made it to the other side of the jetty, it didn't take quite as long to get the kids back in the water and it really was a better location. It is so easy to snap pictures of the kids when they are smiling both naturally and willingly.

Jake got a little braver with the waves then I would have liked:
At one point a wave knocked him down and I had to dart after him. I didn't want it to scare him because I know it scared me when I was a kid. He was no worse for wear and it prompted this new little pose, which he claimed helped him stand up against the waves.

After we left the beach and grabbed lunch, we headed back to the hotel and washed all the sand off in the hotel pool. The kids are pretty much swimming like fish and it is nice to have a deeper pool for them to practice in, although I must say that Miss. Jadyn can be about as stubborn as they come when it comes to taking advice from mommy on her above water stroke. But underwater, they are both swimming the width of the pool with ease. And we couldn't have been at the beach on a better week because every morning we awoke, the sun was already shining, which for that part of the coast is nothing short of a miracle.

And as an footnote, I must mention that on the local news that night one of their lead stories was about how many beachgoers had been stung by stingrays at the beach not too far from where we were. Looks like we dodged a bullet there.