Playing at the Beach

This seemed as good a time as any for all us to head to the beach for a little get-away for the weekend. It was supposed to be somewhat nice weather, and we looked forward to spending time with each other. As soon as Mommy got home on Friday, we packed up and headed out the door. Jillian and Bridget were excited and didn't want to waste any time getting there. We arrived at about 8:00 pm, but it was still light enough that the girls could play around before bed. One odd thing we noticed when we got there was a constant "chirping" sound coming from the fireplace that came and went. It wasn't long before we realized there was a bird nest in the chimney ... turned out, we would be hearing the chirping all weekend long.

On Saturday, we ate breakfast and immediately headed for the beach, since it was fairly warm and there was no wind. We started digging in the dry sand for awhile, and as the weather got better, we let the girls head for the water. They had a great time jumping waves. Jillian loved to see how far she could go out (much to Mommy's concern) while Bridget tried to keep up. We were out there for several hours before we started wearing down, so it was back to the cabin. The girls stripped down and got cleaned up in their respective buckets of warm water.

After a quick lunch, we packed up again and headed to the Astoria pool. Jillian was all over a kickboard, using it to swim everywhere, while Bridget clung to a rubber ball. Jillian finally decided to go down the big red slide with Daddy and loved it. Of course, Bridget had to do it, too, and loved it. The evening wound down with ice cream at Custard King, hot dogs and s'mores around the firepit, and a Strawberry Shortcake video.





On Sunday, we decided to make it an all-day-at-the-beach kind of day. So, right away in the morning after coffee and hot chocolate, we headed for the beach. Daddy spent several hours building a huge castle & moat complex, and the girls dug in the sand inside it. When Jillian wanted to get some dry sand for the castle, we headed with our buckets inland to scoop some up. When we turned back, there was a pre-teen girl standing in the complex with a shovel in hand, quickly tearing it all down ... and she tossed all of our beach toys out. Unbelievable. Eventually, we picked up our stuff and headed back to the cabin for lunch and nap.

Later in the afternoon, we went back to the beach to find our complex taken over by some other kids, so we built our own little castle. The girls spent much of their time playing the water and jumping waves. When they got chilled, we came back again, cleaned up and ate dinner, and relaxed with the Despicable Me video.

Monday was a quick clean-up and drive home for Jillian's swim lessons.