Beach Day!

One of the first things the kids asked about when we figured out where we were moving was if there's a beach. Specifically, they wanted to go beach-camping. We haven't been able to manage that one yet (I think I'm too pregnant for that one right now), but we did take a morning at Chesapeake Bay, not quite the ocean, but close enough (literally, it was only a 30 minute drive, that's close!). I think we had a pretty successful trip, despite a little sunburn for me (it's hard to spray your own back!), and a bit of excitement for Afton...

we were especially excited to play with our new sand toys from Grandma W

break time--after swimming/wading all morning. the shore was pretty steep into the deep, dark water, so we stayed pretty close to the beach.

lookin' pretty! despite the bright glare of the sun.

more sandcastle-ing and a big river/moat/creek thing from the berm into the water.

push-ups in the water anyone?

as the tide started coming I, we saw LOTS of these guys... LOTS.
so our swimming/wading was severely curtailed as we tried to prevent

this! Afton managed to get stung just the same, and she kept rubbing sand on it, which made me worry it would get scraped raw and hurt later... come to find out, one of the best 'remedies' for jellyfish sting is to rub sand on it, it helps to get microscopic stingers out so they stop hurting sooner! way to go Afton! We also applied vinegar to it when we got home, and by 24 hours later it was nearly imperceptible, and later the next afternoon it didn't even hurt at all

Needless to say, that was about enough of the water for me! so we had our picnic lunch and played on the playground for a while:

I didn't even know they made these anymore!

Rayna was happy to climb around for a while

Malachi loved jumping, it was made of metal so the thumps were satisfyingly loud.

I liked the general pirate theme of the play area, even if it was a bit small

then we took a walk along the relatively short beach, climbing on rocks and playing just in the edge of the water, as long as we could see no jellyfish.

there are tons of these zebra swallowtails around here, we liked watching them play at the beach

needless to say, the excavator was also pretty exciting. We look forward to visiting the beach again, maybe at the end of jellyfish season! we also know now to pay attention to when the tide should be coming in/out so as to minimize jelly-contact.

there was also a little pier at the other end of the beach where we met some 'big' boys crabbing with their dad, it was exciting to see the bucket of crabs they'd caught, so now the kids all want to go crabbing with Daddy at some time in the next year... though R & M were careful to point out that they want to help catch the crabs, but NOT eat them :) we'll see...