Third beach week -- a resounding success!!!

Last week we went to Bethany Beach again for a week, and I finally, finally feel like we did the beach right.

You might remember when we first started going to beach, we were total novices and not really all that fond of the beach, but we wanted our kids to have that experience growing up, so we bit the bullet and did it.

I'm so glad we did, because now we really know why people love it so!

The first time we went, we stayed in a hotel - BAD idea.

The second time we went, we stayed in a 1-bedroom condo. Still not great.

This time, we rented a 3-bedroom house and it was perfection!

We even invited my sister and her husband and their two boys, who came for two days and one night, and my Mom and Dad, who brought my other sister's three youngest and stayed for two nights and three days!

More space plus more family = best beach week ever.

Here's the story in one hundred million photos.

There was lots and lots of cousins, water guns, watering cans and fun:

Kwahli and Dean

Russy

Kwahli

Kwahli is getting Russy pretty good in this shot!

Alahna

Aminah

The gang, including my Mom and Dad, who loved the water and the sand as much as the kids.

The gang again. Except for Matty and Clair, this is all the kids. It's the only shot I got of (just about) everyone.

Matty and Clair didn't get in the water at all. Too scary.

                     

    But this is the first year my boys got in it -- even if it was only at the very edge!

. Check Dean out!

That's Cary crouched in the water! Can you believe it?

Why is Matty doing push-ups on the beach? No one knows.

He's going to go ask one of the big kids to get him some water...

So he can pour it on people.

Reggie and Lester

Tahira and Reggie (and my Dad) are the only ones who ventured out into the water. The rest of us are wusses.

Making toe-prints

 We built really rudimentary sandcastles:

We need to work on our technique

We walked along the beach in the early morning:

My Dad took this picture on a morning that he and my Mom took the kids out so we could sleep in. Yes!

We posed on the beach (a lot, and often only after being bribed by me):

Don't they look thrilled to be taking this photo?

This is as close as Clair would get to the water

My handsome Deanie

My scary sea monster Cary

This is the "if you hug and smile I will give you candy" pose.

Why Cary? Why?

We sat for an on-the-beach picture...

And got surprised by a wave!

 My Dad broke the beach rules (and fell asleep happy):

He thought this was so hilarious.

This was after hours of being beaten up by strong waves. My Dad loves the beach!

At the beach house, we ate (a lot), stayed up way too late, blew bubbles and made sidewalk chart art:

Aminah made a beautiful landscape scene (and used up most of the chalk)

Dean's dinosaur! He's such a good artist!

Clair and Matty bonded:

A little...

We saw things we never see at home, like bunnies just hopping around.

This is the Momma bunny, but we saw her babies too. Just hopping around the town! Bethany is such a sweet little place.

We ate a lot of steamed crabs after the kids went to sleep (and had some delicious spirits)

This is the second night of demolishing a crap ton of crabs. The first night we bought a 1/2 a bushel for Reggie's birthday -- and crushed those too.

Dean asked to pick his own crab, so we experienced that milestone! (He did pretty good!)

Train 'em up early!

And we walked around a ton in the little beachtown and ate (A THOUSAND POUNDS OF) frozen custard. We went to Funland TWICE, and I started and finished a book!

All in all, it was an amazingly fun, relaxing and family-filled vacation.

We can't wait to do it again next year!

A little beach in the city

Yesterday after work, Lester took the kids to Herring Run Park. They played a little on the swings - which is Clair's favorite thing to do. And then they wandered back to the wooded part of the park, where there's a trail, lots of good climbing rocks and a sandy area along the stream.


They played in and along the sand, and came home with sand in their hair.

They tossed rocks into the stream and made ripples.

 
And they overturned logs and planks, in search of bugs and wriggly things.  Here, Lester told me later, Clair had just touched a slug, then licked her fingers and made a smacking sound. {Shudder!}

All of this awesomeness (and grossness) -- just three minutes from our house!

Baltimore City: My love/hate relationship with you is heavy on the love right now, just because of things like this.

Beach Training Trip 2012: Success!

We came home yesterday from Beach Training Trip 2012.

The verdict? Resounding success!! 

Color me totally surprised.

Despite my lack of pre-planning, we got out of the house on time and the boys managed the ride to Delaware without any whining or crying. Once there, we had a ton of fun! 

We got the boys to the beach four times (once even to the edge of the water!), rode a trolley, chased sea gulls, looked for sea shells, made new friends, rode kiddie rides (with minimal crying), took walks, ate frozen custard (wherehaveyoubeenallmylife?) and all sorts of other amazing junk food, and had an all around action-packed, but somehow relaxing, great time. I'm shocked. And elated. 

I honestly can't wait to do it again next year. Maybe we can even do a full week! (I cannot believe I'm saying this!)


Now...photos!!

At first, the boys would not even get close to the water. So I used the wagon as a buffer. They enjoyed watching the waves hit the shore -- from the safety of their vehicle.

Clair was an ANGEL the entire trip. She slept through the night in her Pack 'n Play, and rode with the punches for whatever it was we were doing. She even took a nap on the beach, attracting all kinds of people to come over and "awwww" at her. That's my girl.

Skill that must be learned: Eating food on the beach without getting sand all over everything. I'm pretty sure my children consumed more sand this trip than actual food.

The band-aids? Cary fell and scraped his head pretty bad. Once Dean saw that he had a band-aid, he had to have one, too. So this is how they walked around town, looking like rough 'n tumble city kids. Twins with matching "injuries" is cause for a whole lotta people stopping to ask questions, in case you didn't know.

You think I'm joking when I tell you that my boys do not smile, even when they're having fun. Because seriously, they thought this trolley ride was amazing! Can you tell? Of course not.

The trolley driver hated his job, and complained the entire time he was driving around. He also stopped the trolley in a shopping plaza to buy  a carton of cigarettes. This was hysterical to Lester and me. Reminds us of family members. LOL.

On our last day, we went to Rehoboth, to check out a new beach and some new scenery. The boardwalk there is hoppin'! But we had to stop every 6 seconds to let the boys grab fistfuls of popcorn, so eventually we got wise and just sat down and ate and people-watched until their was nothing left but butter and kernels. Dean might have eaten those too if we didn't throw the box away. (This is also where I got the frozen custard. ZOMG!!)

The boys rode in "fire trucks" and enjoyed it. But then, we tried them on "race cars" -- same ride, just different vehicles -- and Cary cried midway through. That was the end of the rides. But we got them on two! So we consider this a success!

My favorite photo of my two favorite beachcombers. Gracious, I love this pic!

The whole clan. We'll see you next year!

Pre-vacation craziness

We're leaving tonight for the Davis children's inaugural trip to the beach and I have done absolutely nothing to prepare.

This is so not like me.

I still have to go to the store, wash some clothes, prepare some snacks, pack, print out the directions to our hotel, etc. Why do I do this to myself? I should have taken today off to do some of this running around.
Ugh.

Truth be told, I'm not all that excited about this trip. Unlike many people I know, the beach is not my  favorite place on Earth. I don't dislike it, not at all. And whenever I've taken my sisters' kids to the beach, I have always truly enjoyed watching them play in the waves and on the sand, and playing with them.

But I always get too hot and want to sleep -- which you can't do with children running around; I can't swim, so that's a huge barrier; it's impossible to read on the beach with kids or even listen to your iPod (you have to have all senses on high alert). So I'm never really sure what to do with myself while there for hours on end.

I guess just play with the kiddos? Which is fine; this trip is for them, after all. But I always feel like I'm play-acting at being a beach-goer. It doesn't come natural.

Also, I always end up feeling a little helter-skelter keeping up with all the things you have to drag to the beach: towels, toys, coolers, snacks, sunglasses, sunscreen, something for the trash, something for the wet items, beach shoes, books, magazines, etc. And I am a total nervous Nelly, worried sick all the time that someone is going to drown. Even if we're just playing around the edge of the water, I still drive myself crazy worrying that a child will get stung by a jellyfish, bitten by some sea creature, cut his foot on a sea shell, etc.  It all makes me a little bit crazy, if I'm just being perfectly honest.

And also, can I just say, sunscreen on black skin?? ANNOYING as hell. It never rubs in all the way, leaving us cloaked in a ghostly-pale-purple sheen. We look ridiculous. (I'm just sayin'...)

But I know that kids the world over LOVE the beach.

For months after I took my eldest nephew some years ago to the beach, he talked about it and talked about it. Once in the car -- maybe two years later -- he said to me, randomly and apropos of nothing, "Auntie Tika, remember that time you took us to the beach? That was the best. day. ever."

Me, my niece Aminah and my nephew Kalonji at the beach in 2007. These kids had never been happier!

I will never forget that. So I want my boys to have happy memories of summer visits to the beach, even if it's not my absolute favorite thing.

I just wish I had done something -- anything -- to prepare before now, so that the lead-up to the restful, relaxing beach trip wouldn't be quite so exhausting.