B is for Beach


It might sound kind of cliche to use beach as my "B" word.  After all, I do live in Florida--a peninsula with beaches all around.  But here's the thing...I just am not a beach person.  Actually, I love to walk on the beach at sunrise and sunset.  And I like collecting shells.  But I hate sand...and salt.  I mean, I really hate salt.  I hardly salt my food.  And I certainly don't want to get a mouthful of sandy, salty water.  I could go on and on, but really, the worst part to me about the beach is all the prep work to get there and all the clean-up afterward, especially with 4 kids.

I've get to the beach maybe twice a year normally.

I've been twice in the past week.

Yeppers, it goes back to that whole "playing tourist with out of town family" thing that I spoke of in my "A is for Atlas V Rocket" post.  It's a good thing though.  I need a reason to make me go to the beach, because I really don't want to be the type of mom whose kids grow up in Florida but hardly go to the beach.  That was my husband's lot in life, and he grew up about a mile and a half (not an hour and a half) from the beach.

But my dad's cousin and his family has been in town, and they were staying at the coast, so we drove over twice to see them.  Andrew is only 5 years older than me, even though he's my dad's cousin.  And his kids are younger than mine are.  He and his wife lived in Hawaii for 10 years, and their kids were born there.  They moved back about a year and a half ago, but they miss the beach, so they came for a visit :-).

The first day we met them, I just had my two youngest.  It was NOT a warm day.  High in the very low 70's with quite a wind blowing on the beach.  We went to Playalinda and had the beach practically to ourselves.  The kids spent about 2 hours in the (not very warm at all) water.

Sari and TJ in the surf

Sari buried in sand with Athena digging her out.

Cousin Andrew excavating one small girl.

Freddy and Athena

Sari and Athena

TJ and Freddy (excuse all the spots in the picture...this lens needs to be sent away for cleaning!)
The kids really hit it off.  And they are so alike in appearance.  Especially Freddy and TJ.  Playalinda closes at 6, so we all went to dinner at a local pizza place and then headed home.

Our next day at the beach was Tuesday the 19th for the rocket launch.  This time, all my kiddos were there. It was a beautiful day.  Highs in the mid 80's.  Plenty warm in the sun.  The water was still in the 60s though.


The trip to the beach was worth it for this moment alone.  All four of my kids working together on a sand castle project.

Almost everyone...Leslie and I were enjoying the shade of our canopy.


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Check out what others chose for their "B" words at Ben and Me.

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