Feeling Beachy

Emily's always had a less than happy experience with the beach. I'd say she down right *despised* the beach year after year. The torture would always commence in the 2 hour car ride with a good car sickness induced vomit and ensuing panic attack. Then the sand would sneak into every crevice of her sticky sunblocked body. It was hot, too windy, and just too treacherous a terrain. Mean ol' mom forced her to do everything else in life--eat some foods other than peanut butter crunch cereal, bathe every once in awhile, sleep a couple hours a night--and darnit, I was going to force her to at least tolerate the beach while the rest of us had fun. We'd roll out the red carpet for her. She had her own tent, spare towels, treats galore, and she'd sit there just scowling. Forget about going into the water. No sirree. There's seaweed and that saltwater burns my eyes.

But alas, this year was a bit different.

Pig tails did the trick. I knew the day would be good when I saw the bounce in her step. As we got out to the beach the questions started flowing. "where are the stairs to the swimming pool? why are the birds flying about so crazy? why must the sand burn my soles off my feet?" Sensing a little anxiety, my mom took the kids straight to feel the waves wash over their little pudgy toes. And that's when it all started.

***The Golden Moment***

For the first time in our little girl's life, she was truly happy the whole day long. You've never seen so big a smile plastered to her sweet little face. She and Leo spent the next 6 hours running around like they had just won the lottery.

They sat comfortably in the scratchy sand building the great wall of China. They loved digging up the tiny mussels (she-shells) and watching them dig back into the sand.

Leo couldn't contain his excitement of the pinwheel on steroids. Flying the kite was even better.

Do you see that face?! This kid was in heaven. He would throw his head back and kick his feet as hard as he could.

The best part of all: sleeping under the setting sun.


Next time we go, we'll bust out the smores. They wont know what hit them!