Friday, July 06, 2012

Beach Adventures

We went to the beach yesterday.  We are now exhausted after three straight days of non-stop fun.  We need a vacation.  Oh...wait....this IS our vacation.

Miss Zoey (and mom) forgot to bring her extra leg so she didn't have as much fun as usual.
We tried a different beach which resulted in mixed reviews from the kids.  This beach had almost no sand but there was a lot of shallow water for hunting crabs.
Or just shells, for those terrified of live crustaceans.

Soothing scenery
Collecting empty snail shells
Katie-bug was very serious about finding them.
But then...wonder of wonders, SaraGrace spotted a live, baby crab and managed to catch it.
Jordan admires the discovery
The transfer of goods
Just then, Chloe and Jillian discovered clams...or mussels.  No one was quite sure what they were--even the local beach goers.
They SQUIRT!  They actually squirt like a little boy going potty.  Gross!
If this disgusting thing was a clam, I'm never eating them again.  Ewwwww....
More squirting.
But then.... A nice man started finding crabs for the kids to play with.  SaraGrace and Jordan were all over that!
J-Man has no fear!
SaraGrace gets up close and personal
Studying it carefully and very impressed.
The other kids found more snail shells and found to their delight that they were still occupied.
Cool, huh?

The next series of pictures tells a hilarious story of SaraGrace attempting to go potty in the ocean.  It seems she had just about finished going, when to her horror, she saw a large crab skittering past her feet.  She jumped up and started shrieking, dancing, skipping, shuddering, and screaming her way to shore.  We were dying laughing at her.


The nice man came back with three crabs and told the kids how he used to have crab races when he was a kid.
Setting up the race course to see which crab could make it back to the sea first.
This one never found the ocean. Since it was the biggest, SaraGrace and Jordan wanted to see if it would grab onto a shell.  
It did.

One crab had disappeared during the run to the sea, but the other two were played with for quite awhile.  Jordan wanted to take them home but we knew they would die, so he sadly agreed to leave them behind.
Kate abandoned her collection of shells when she realized with disgust that they were still inhabited with slimy little creatures.

After that it was time for fish and chips at one of the local restaurants.  SO YUMMY!

The kids still had their sparklers so we thought it would be fun to light them on the beach.  
My Datong cuties pose in the pretty sunset



My Treasures