Four Feet More

As you know, things have been a bit rough here lately.  With the weather getting a bit nicer, Jeff and I decided to take the kids to the beach for the day.  We haven't been in a while, and it was a much needed break.

We started out early, tired but excited.  Jeff packed his fishing gear, the kids brought some "beach toys" (including 4 lightsabers - a sand hill at the beach looks like something out of Tatooine), and I brought my knitting and a book.  We hit the rocky side of the beach first, where Jeff imagined himself catching a cabezon, eel or some other tasty fish to cook up for dinner that night.  He was not very successful.  But the kids and I were!  Not 5 minutes on the beach, Vika spotted a red starfish laying among the gravely rocks, just outside of the shore line.  At first we thought it was dead (things washed up on the beach generally are), but nope, it was still alive.  After taking a few pictures, Vika decided to "rescue" the starfish by gently placing it in a tidepool with direct access to the ocean.  There it sat, doing whatever it is that starfish do, for the next 4 hours.

In the tidepools we also found several small hermit crabs, some of which would come out and walk on our hands.  The bigger ones, older and more wise, lived up to the name of "hermit" and refused to come out and play.   Eamon soon became bored with the hermit crabs and went off to climb the cliff walls framing the beach.  At one point I saw him scaling a nearly vertical wall, looking for his next foothold about 20 feet up.  "Eamon!"  I shouted, "You're not Bear Grylls! Come down from there before you fall and crack your head open!" Thank goodness the boy actually listened (I probably have Vika's recent head injury to thank for that), and decided to explore the tidepools and caves instead.  He found a dark brown spider crab on the beach, which while still alive, probably would not be for much longer. it was kind of cute though, in an alienish sort of way.


Around noon, we moved to the sandy side of the beach for lunch and fun.  Vika set to work immediately digging a big hole.  She always does this at the beach, and I never knew why until this outing.  Apparently, laying in the hole makes her warm.  Eamon headed into the surf with a lightsaber to practice his Jedi moves.  The beach wasn't very crowded, but those walking the shore were quite amused by the scrappy kid attacking waves as if they were some oncoming invasion of battle droids.  And, not to brag or anything, but the boy's got some moves.  If there really were battle droids attacking our beach, he totally would have vanquished them.

I snuggled up on the blanket and read a book while Jeff continued fishing.  He actually caught a tiger perch later in the day, which he and Vika crammed into Eamon's beach bucket filled with seawater (we didn't bring a fish cooler - apparently Jeff's expectation of catching dinner was as low as mine).  The poor thing didn't look comfortable at all.  Jeff put the bucket in a hole in the sand, and much to the fish's relief, a rogue wave hit the shore not much later, washing both it and the bucket off to freedom!  And, I didn't have to eat perch for dinner (bony things). It was a win-win all around. 

The four of us had a great day together and were able to reconnect after the clashes of recent weeks.  Spring Break is here now, so hopefully this dratted rain will go away and we'll be able to enjoy some more family outings in the week to come.