road trip

Everyone up early on a Sunday morning...it can only mean one thing: road trip to the beach.

Although night-before preparation would have made things a little easier, we still managed to stock the cooler with PB&Js, hard-boiled eggs, grapes, granola bars and water bottles and get on the road by 10am I think.

I've been a little hesitant to take a baby to the beach...with all that sun, sand and water.  But it was a perfect overcast day.  Plus JP grabbed a long pvc pipe just before we left with the promise of some homemade shade.  (Yes, we do just have pvc pipe laying around....unfortunately, our front porch often looks like Sanford and Son.)

Carmen got her first glimpse of the surf and sand for just a bit before the salty breeze put her to sleep.

Diego set to work right away...just like the old days...digging a giant hole.



He was throwing sand left and right, over his shoulders, high in the air.  I was just too far away and pinned under a sleeping baby to stop him.  Thankfully, no one got it in the face.



The other three spent most of the four hours we were there surfing the waves.  Isn't it amazing how calm it looks, like there will never be a wave big enough to carry you in?



Diego's still digging away.



JP's homemade shade collapsed as soon as he left for the waves.  He had bent the pvc pipe into an arch, stuck it in the sand, and threw a towel over top of it.  There was just enough shade to cover Carmen's two foot body, and as I set her in it, the towel fell on top of her.  There was no way I was going to mess with that for hours, so I set my sights on the umbrella rental guy.  Fifteen dollars until 6pm...the best fifteen dollars I ever spent.  Carmen and I parked under it and I watched the rest of the family have fun through the zoom lens on my camera.

Wild hair is Isabela's trademark at the beach.  I barely saw her the whole day.  And this was the one that didn't even want to go!



Diego's throwing more sand.



And the hole digging expert has arrived!  There's a way to do this, you know.



Smiles caught off-guard are the best.



Carmen still snoozing away.



Diego is serious about his sand hole.



Dig.  Flip.  Splat.  Repeat.



I did a lot of people watching while I was sitting there.  There was this one couple who I figured must be newlyweds.  JP asked me why I thought so.  Well, the lady was sunbathing on her back with her eyes closed while the man smoothed out the sand nice and flat in front of him.  I thought he had OCD until he started writing his initials plus her initials.  I said only newlyweds would do something romantic like that.  (Although I'm pretty sure I said corny instead of romantic.)



Looks like daddy caught a good wave in.



It turned out it wasn't so much a hole he was digging, as a bunker.



He's not throwing sand....he's throwing grenades!  Whose boy IS this?



And just to prove I was there...one last shot of me.  Do I look like the old pictures of my mom at the beach, or what? How does that happen?!!