A Day at the Beach

A few days after the family reunion, Mindy and Kevin and their kids, Mary and her kids, and Tom and Renee came over for wing night. Mindy and Kevin cooked A LOT of wings, and I prepared side dishes. George and Kevin took all the children to the elementary school before dinner to drive George's remote control truck and fly his airplanes while Mary and I went to get some groceries at WalMart. It's been a long time since we've seen Mary, so it was nice to hang out with her. Also, we haven't seen Zach, Garrett, and Katie in about two years, so it was unbelievable how grown up they are. George and Zach played several games of chess while they were staying with us, and Zach actually beat him (Go, Zach!). We gave the children mini ice cream cones and Bubble Yum ice cream, which they loved.
Everyone except Tom spent the night. The adults played a board game and the children all bedded down in the playroom. The following morning, we got up and all headed to the beach (except poor George, who had to go to work). We went to Emerald Isle, stopping for lunch at an Andy's in Swansboro beforehand. It was pretty funny when we walked into that Andy's. I don't think they'd seen that many kids come in at once before, but they handled it pretty well. And I do have to say that our children behaved themselves very well.










OK, so there was some mild goofiness involved, but on the whole, it was pretty tame. Drake even consented to sitting two whole booths away from me (which means I got to eat a good deal of my food in peace) because he got to sit at the "boys' table" and drink lemonade out of his own big boy cup and straw.
After lunch, we hit the beach...



The kids boogey-boarded and swam. The water was really rough, though. It was so rough, it actually knocked both Skylar and me flat on our rumps one time. Every time a wave crashed into us, it glued little tiny shells to our skin. A week later, I was still having sand and shell pieces spill out of the lint trap in my dryer.



When the waves got too rough for them, Bart and Mack began to build a tide pool with another little girl they befriended. It was quite an endeavor, one that literally took hours. I was really surprised that Bart put as much patience and concentration into it as he did. He really puts a lot of thought and effort into building things, though.










Drake stayed close by me or Mindy and looked for shells. He did a lot of digging, too.

It ended up being quite a nice excursion. The children were all really tired when we drove back in the late afternoon. We stopped for ice cream in Swansboro along the way. Once we arrived back at our house, we showered and then warmed up leftover wings and mac'n'cheese from the night before.

By bedtime, I think we were all utterly exhausted (at least I know I was), but I think everyone had a really good time. It was well worth the drive and the ten pounds of sand and shell bits we drug back with us and deposited onto my carpet. There just really is nothing like the feeling you have when you get home after a long day at the beach. You might be tired, slightly sunburned, sticky from the salt water, and chafing from all the sand down your bathing suit bottom, but it all is somehow worth it as you sit there at the end of the day, all sun-warmed and drowsy.
There is nothing like summertime!