Beach Day

My husband and I had our first date at the beach. Saturday was our anniversary (16 years!) so we took a trip to the beach with the kids. It's only about 40 minutes away and it was wonderfully cool compared to our house.

We found an ancient carving in a rock. I believe it is a pelican. OK, maybe not too ancient.


Jungle Boy and Drama Girl had an astounding original idea. "Mom! We're going to dig a hole to CHINA!" Some things never change. I fondly remember my own hole-digging days.

DH got out his sketchbook. Wasabi Girl and I played in the water and picked up shells and pretty rocks.




Here's my log. Isn't it perfect? It's saying "this is the place for moms to sit and watch everyone."







Work on the grand hole continued at a steady pace. I don't think I was ever that industrious.








When they got tired of digging, they accessorized with a driftwood towel rack. Drama Girl curled up inside with a book (of course) and the twins ran off exploring together.











Big waves right off shore. As the official worrier, it was my job to keep yelling "Don't go too far! Watch the undertow!" The water was freezing cold anyway. I don't think they would have gone too far, but I was doing my job.












I don't have a caption for this one, except here are my kids and some seagulls and some puffy clouds having fun on a beautiful day at the beach, forgetting everything about everywhere and just living in the moment. Childhood should have millions of days like this.



When we got tired, we went to the same restaurant we'd gone to on that first date 19 years ago. It's Zagat-rated, but still cool enough to have coloring pages for kids. When do we get too old for crayons with meals?





I ordered a mimosa and this is what arrived. I had a blast playing mad scientist mixing the ingredients into the chilled flute. The kids were aghast. Drama Girl said "You're not actually going to drink that are you?"

Oh yes. And it was good.









In the spirit of "Mom, are you going to take pictures of everything today?" Here is the jam. On the left we have rhubarb-strawberry and on the right is olallieberry. This is a specialty of this restaurant. For the uninitiated, an olallieberry is something of a cross between a blackberry and a loganberry (if that helps). It's delicious. Wasabi Girl had olallieberry syrup on her French Toast.


We had a great day, and a perfect anniversary. Someday I'll blog about that first date 19 years ago, but for now, I just want to remember today. Everyone so happy, perfect weather, and olallieberries. Doesn't get any better than this.