A Day at the Beach

My sister, Laura, lives in Southern California and every other year we go to visit them. We've never been to Disneyland with our kids, so we decided to go this year. And of course, a big highlight of going to California is getting to go to the beach. We went twice while we were there - the first time it was quite overcast and everyone was saying how sorry they were that the sun wasn't out, but not me. Overcast skies make for soft, diffused light and beautiful photos and I had a heyday with my new camera.

So here is a very small percentage of the photos I took that first day at the beach.





The water was VERY, very cold, and it caused a little bit of fear and trepidation among some of the children. Can you tell which of these kids is from California?



Yes, she embraced the cold water, reveled in it even!






Have you ever seen a sandcrab? Interesting little creatures - they sure can burrow. The kids spent half their time hunting for them and playing with them. I think the sandcrabs were pretty relieved when we went home that day.


Laura has a lovely 16 year old boy:

I wish I'd gotten a better picture of him, this was the only one I was able to grab.

Then, she has a 12 year old girl who is 4 months older than my Jaxon. She had a little nap on the sand:


Then, she had a girl 7 weeks after my Brynn and they are quite a pair - two fun little girlie-girl cousins who have a ball together.


And then my sister gave birth to a boy 2 days before my Luke was born. And they're also quite the little pair - they're like peas and carrots. They're the vanilla and chocolate version of the same kid, practically. They're the same exact same height and too much fun together.


Jaxon was kind enough to let them bury him.


But then he was stuck in the sand when the waves came in:


And my Marty..... I'm sure he was the only guy on the entire California coastline with a Caterpillar T-shirt on.



The kids were kind enough to humor me for this final photo - I love it, all these little sandy feet
represent all of my parent's grandchildren.


We had such a great time. It's a good thing we don't live in California because I'd spend all my time at the beach.