I'm going to pretend that I was super-clever and decided to wait until a chilly day like today to post these pictures. Ya know, as if I had forethought and knew I'd want to be reminded of summer's warmth and the beach. It's more likely however that I just never got around to blogging about the boys' first trip to the beach. So, I'll do it now.
Over the summer, the same weekend as our
sixth anniversary, we took advantage of my parents' close proximity to the beach and introduced the little ones to the surf and sand. Even though Matt and I had planned on taking the boys to the beach that day, because I'm
neurotic and tend toward being
anxious, it took some convincing for me to agree to actually go when the day arrived. I could just picture Gideon eating fistfuls of sand and Caleb charging toward the ocean only to be swept away by a large wave. Or more likely, Caleb running up to a group of people and stealing their sandwiches or their children's toys or even knocking over a sandcastle built by a darling little toddler wearing tiny glasses (I have a thing with kids in glasses, it's like they need extra protection or something).
Of course it was nothing like that. We got to the beach and hung out with little to no drama. Caleb loved it and he was cautious of the ocean so my fear of him drowning was put to rest shortly after arriving. The section of beach we chose wasn't crowded so that helped prevent my other fears from occurring and Gideon stayed planted on the beach blanket so no sandy snack for him. It was a really good time actually.
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| Headed to the beach. |
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| Matt's disgust at how many pictures I requested he take. |
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| I call this "Little Boy, Big Ocean" |
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| This one is entitled "Baby on Blanket" |
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Gideon's first toes-in-the-ocean experience and Matt's
AMAZING farmer's tan! |
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It was pretty impossible to get him to stand still.
This was about the best I could do. |
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| Yay! Lets bathe in sand! |
What I hadn't anticipated was how long it would take for us to
leave the beach! I should have gotten myself worked up over
that! We spent the same amount of time packing the kids up, walking down to the bathroom, rinsing the kids off, changing diapers, wrestling/putting kids in dry clothes, walking back to the car, nursing the baby, getting kids snugly in their carseats and then finally setting off for the drive back to my parents' house as we had spent on the beach.
That was the stressful part. Thankfully, the making memories part outweighs the stress part hands down every time!
