A Day at the Beach

Some good friends in our Ward invited us to go to the beach for Labor Day. It's only an hour drive away and we had SO much fun. It made me downright homesick for Dongara, Western Australia. Just like North Beach, the wind, driving on the sand, seashells, even an occasional crab in the water. Man, I miss Australia!

So to enjoy the experience to the fullest we brought our Trick Kite. We've had years of fun with this thing. But instead of Jared crashing it into the random passers by head, he has now mastered it enough to sweep the strings past my ear just to annoy me. Way to go honey.
Once Sicily warmed up to the idea of the beach she had a ball. Whenever we took her out into the water she'd refuse to put her feet down. And not because she didn't like the sand. She did it because she loved the waves making her float around. She'd giggle and squeal every wave.
We have the biggest sand shovel ever. It digs GREAT holes and Phoenix used it to the max. Though it is kind of difficult to fill a tiny bucket with a huge shovel.
Some of our friends brought this big ol' Sea Dragon for their kids. I think my kids kind of hogged it for a lot of the day. But they had fun, and we swapped sand toys and kick boards to make up for it.

Sicily and our little friend Bailey had to have a go. We stayed in the low tide puddle areas though. Easier to keep the under 2's on when there aren't waves trying to dump them.
As we all started to get ready to leave the beach other people were just getting to the beach. They had 2 cutest little puppies that kind of mobbed poor Sicily. I think they were going for her crackers. But Phoenix came to the rescue. Actually he wasn't trying to save Sicily, he really just wanted to hold the littlest pup.
So don't look at Sicily and think, "Oh my goodness! They are the worst parents in the world and didn't put any sunblock on that poor little red heads skin!" Now, we did put sunblock on all our kids. Problem was it was the cheap brand, and we read the directions afterwards. We were meant to put it on every 80 mins. We were at the beach for 3 1/2 hours. You do the math. Let's just say we ALL have sunburns as bad as this little red head. And all of us hurt...a lot.