A day at the beach

Since my brother-in-law is in town, we decided to venture to the beach. We have not been to the beach since Daniel was born so we weren't sure how difficult it would be, but figured we'd give it a try. After loading up the car with 4 beach chairs, an umbrella, 5 beach blankets, a cooler with water, several beach toys and buckets, suntan lotion, snacks, a blanket, some bottles, a wheelie wonder cart to hold all of this stuff and all the other necessities that a 3 year old and 3 month require we were on our way. We managed to get a good parking spot (thank goodness) loaded up the cart, got the kids out of the car and trudged down to the beach. The waves were a little bit higher than normal so Allison didn't care to go in the water. She preferred playing the sand. I sat in my beach chair under the umbrella holding Daniel and Jeff and his brother managed to swim for about 10 minutes. After about an hour and a half, we decided to pack up and head home. After repacking the towels, 4 chairs, sand toys, etc, we trudged our way back up the sand to the outdoor showers and I attempted to clean Allison who was basically covered head to toe in sand. However, since she was also covered in suntan lotion, the sand was not willing to come off to easily. About a half hour later, we were finally in the car ready to leave. We managed to stop for a nice lunch on the water on the way home. When we finally got home, we jumped in the pool and made the decision that's it's much easier to just stay home and enjoy the pool. No packing, loading, unpacking, cleaning...just walk out the door and jump in the pool. Guess we won't be going back to the beach until the kids are 10 or so.

Here's a pic of Daniel's first trip to the beach: