Sandcastles in My Mind

My good friend went away for a few days, so we enjoyed the company of her four year old. I dropped off all the kids at their various day camps on Thursday, knowing that our house guest was taking her leave of us. Her older sister was picking her up and taking her home.  Somehow, this triggered something in me.

Right then and there at 9:32 in the morning I decided on a plan for the afternoon. Typically we go swimming, but I just had a strong desire to DO something, and something good and summery. The decision was actually shocking, I couldn't believe not only that I had thought of it, but that I really wanted to do it.

We went to the beach.  Not our usual beach. As much as that lake has a nicer crowd, beach access is down a hill across a street and down steps. Which is fine when there are lots of big hands, but three little kids and a a little bit of stuff would have made it difficult.
So we went to a very large beach in the same area (20 minutes from the house). It's crowded, but easy to get to, easy to find a spot, both parking and at the water. It helps that we arrived at 4:00, and Yay! there's no fee at that time.

An hour and half at the beach, on the sand, in the water, happy kids- a really fun time. My hatred of the beach was not present due to the following factors:

1. There was no food involved. All we brought were water bottles (I had snacks in the car for the way home). This eliminated the constant asking for snacks when I wanted them to be playing and enjoying the sand.
2. We brought one bag with towels and water bottles, sunscreen and t-shirts, one chair, one bucket of sand toys. 
3. It was just my little kids and thus there wasn't sand EVERYWHERE, since there were no beach blankets or tons of towels to keep track of, everything stayed clean and dry in the bag or over the chair. It also stayed clean and dry since there was no food, and thus they did not hover around the chair.
4. No one needed the bathroom
5. I knew about how long we would stay, since we got there at 4 and the beach front closes at 6.
6. No one asked to leave and had to wait until more people were ready to go.
7. They behaved really well.

This is not to say that I won't be excited to go to the beach with the whole kit and kaboodle (i.e., cousins, see the link above) . Though whole kit and kaboodle has gotten smaller as the big girls work, and don't swim in public, and the little boys aren't so little anymore!

A nice slice of summer that was just "hey, let's go to the beach!" and it worked.

Yay!