It wasn't cold enough to keep them out!

Day 22

Thursday, June 16

Is it snowing outside today? No. Is it raining outside today? No. Does it matter that the average temperature here has been 65-70 degrees and it HAS been raining? Heck NO! There was nothing today that was going to keep the kids, including the big one I’m married to, OUT of the ocean.

We found a beautiful beach with the best sand and there was plenty of room to lug all our stuff to. That’s important because we tend to lug a lot of stuff. Into the van we shoved boogie boards, life vests, wetsuits, towels, snacks, drinks and two big umbrellas. Sometimes this travel thing is pretty tiring to have the continual need to pack and unpack, load and reload. But today, I can say with 100% certainty, the cramming of all that stuff was well worth it. Give my kids a beach and some ocean surf and magically, the bickering, arguing and general sibling rivalry melts away into an afternoon of smiles, laughter and fun.

Me, on the other hand, I’m just happy to have the camera to hide behind because ocean water and I have yet to come to an agreement on our relationship. And today was a great day to have camera duty!! Especially when they kids discovered how FREEZING the Atlantic ocean is near the cape. Freezing in an understatement. In fact, Bill, who loves the ocean more than I can say, had to remove himself from the water and mentally convince himself to try again! He guessed the water was about 60 degrees. (just looked it up…average temp in June is 61 degrees!) I think their faces say it all

 They had to resort to this method to get used to the water-

 Laurel was smart, she stayed dry with me…….. 

Love this one....like she's checking out her domain!!

Not only did the kids find entertainment value with the water, they went on many treasure hunts and came back with lots of these.

Dead crabs. What a lucky mom that my kids are SO skilled in procuring dead sea life from the ocean and then assembling them into this-

Some other kids that walked by were highly impressed and asked if they could have some of them. Sure, by all means, please go impress your own parents with some dead crabs. I’ll just smile and wave when they look over our direction…….at least I didn't send them over with the live sea slug they found.....

The rest of the afternoon was filled with moments like these...warning, lots of photos!!

 And father-son ocean junkie moments like these: 

 I am very happy and grateful we had this afternoon at the beach.  I love when my family is so happy together!