Quick Recap

We ate very poorly, spent far too much time in the sun, and it will take us a full week to catch up on our sleep, not to mention getting the sand out of nature's crannies. But what a great trip! These kids are so much fun to travel with. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Miss Emily has eaten her fair share of sand, and found it to be quite tasty, gauging from the amount of time she spent grazing the beach. I bought her a sun bonnet, and she hates it. Fortunately, it ties under her chin, so she's stuck with it and is at my mercy. Took me a bit to convince the boys that she was not going to be strangled with it, though. (Glad to know they listen to our "never put anything around your neck" speeches!)

Smidge wore himself out running from the waves. Back to the waves. After the seagulls. From the seagulls. Wherever you go, whatever you do, you must RUN! And squeal! Stop to giggle. Then RUN again!

Most of the time, I only saw James and John from the shoulders, up. They hit the water and didn't emerge until the skin began curling from my body, in spite of the 35 SPF coating, and I insisted that six hours was enough time on the beach for one day. The surf was pretty rough, and although I'm not up on maritime terminology, the red flags on the beach didn't look terribly encouraging, in my estimation. Did that deter the boys any? Nope. They just flung themselves face first into the fray and called it good. I don't know how a boy can go under a wave, come up blustery and irate that he got water up his nose, yet dive back in, only to re-emerge a few seconds later, bleeding from multiple wounds, shouting, "WOW! That was FUN!" Obviously, I was never a little boy. All I could think was, "They're going to attract sharks if they keep bleeding like that."

In the end, though, I'm the only one that got seriously burned. No sharks came to feast on my children. Miss Emily seems to have passed most of the sand, and thankfully, seems completely unphased by it.

We had a very good time catching up with my friend from high school (his name is also James, so for clarification sake, we'll refer to him as "Mr. James"). The boys adored him. I enjoyed his company tremendously, but tried hard not to impose our presence upon him too much (we can be a bit of a shock). He gave the boys a tour of the police department, which they could not wait to tell Zorak about this morning. The biggest hits being the scale in the processing room, the license plate cover on his cruiser (it's on the back and says, "Smile... I could be behind you.") and the Chief's office (he has a box of goodies and lets the kids pick something out when they visit). Mr. James graciously agreed to join us on the dolphin cruise when I was informed that they had a 2:1 child-adult restriction, but we let him off the hook when the amenities lady realized she'd called the wrong boating place and yes, I can, if I am odd enough to want to, take all four children aboard all by myself.

The dolphin cruise was amazing. John saw a jellyfish cruising along (glad I didn't think about that before we hit the beach!) James saw a crab swimming alongside the boat (had no clue they did that, and I thought he must have been mistaken, but the cute young lady beside him confirmed that that's what it was - how cool!) The dolphins came and swam by the bow of the boat, showing off for the crowd. Miss Emily got loved on and serenaded by a delightful couple from Georgia - in Ukranian, no less. James got his "sea legs" (translation: he quit slamming into the rails). John fell in love with the sea, in general. Smidge hung with the big kids pretty darned well, but slept like a rock once his head hit the pillow. Or the floor.

After we checked out of the hotel on Friday, we had the chance to visit with Anniesue and her adorable little chunk of toddler, T. Willy. He and Smidge made fast friends, playing in the sand, eating grapes. The bigger boys got in more beach time, and Anniesue and I had a very nice time visiting. She's so sweet! And she is funny - she made me smile a lot, so don't let her tell you otherwise. I was glad she took the time to come and meet up with us, but was sad that I'd left her number at home on the counter and didn't get to get together earlier in the visit. You know, before my brain was fried. However, hopefully we'll be able to see them again the next time we go down.

And yes, in spite of muttering under my breath at six in the morning on Wednesday that I was never. doing. this. again (I really hate packing and planning), we have got to do this again. It was really fun! But next time, we need to stay a full week, and we need to take Zorak, too.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy