another beach day

We headed to the beach early on Friday morning, hoping to beat the Labor Day rush. It was perfect! Not many people were there yet, there wasn't much wind, and the waves weren't too crazy.

Ashley and Ethan went to read the sign, to make sure it was safe to go in the water.

All they really needed to do was look at the water. It looked pretty safe.

Ashley and Ethan jumped right in and rode the waves.

But Josh didn't want to get wet. He put up a fight about wearing his swim suit to the beach.

He was happy to sit and build sand castles for a while. 

I hung out with him and enjoyed the view.

And tried to not be jealous of all the beach bikers. It looked relaxing, riding on the sand like that. 

Chris makes using a boogie board snow sled in the ocean look not so weird. 

 Josh started to get brave and finally made his way into the water. He even boogie boarded for a while, until Chris accidentally pushed him under a wave and he came up coughing. Then he was done.

This guy flew right over us. It looked like fun!

 If you can't tell from all these pictures, Josh loves his blue bucket.

He used to love the red one, but it broke. So blue it is. 

 After I got too hot hanging out with josh on the sand, I decided to go swimming to cool off. I don't like going under water, especially in the salty ocean. But Chris dared encouraged me to try boogie boarding. Guess what? I still don't like going under.

 But Ashley and I did enjoy bobbing over the waves. Until we got too far out so that our feet didn't touch, and we had to swim back to shore. After that, we decided we were done for the day, and were heading back to dry land, when a big wave came along and pushed me under, and it grabbed Ashley and spun her in a few somersaults under water. Then she was really done with the ocean for the day. (Poor little Ashley is spitting and coughing and crying in the picture below. And I'm a good mom, smiling all the while...)

Then it was time to go home. The kids were slightly disappointed when we didn't stop at Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone. I guess it was supposed to be a new tradition. Maybe next time...