What’s up at the beach?

Sitting on the deck looking at the ocean, listening to the kids play in the pool.  It’s almost dinner time of day two at the beach.  The sun is hot down here so we try to plan beach and pool outings around the less intense sun times but we also put up two huge tent thingies down at the beach for lots of shade.

No major sunburns so far although Austin’s freckles are reproducing pretty fast.  All is well and as Austin pointed out, it just smells good.  Nice and beachy.

The boys saw a big turtle swim past them when they were out on their boogie boards today.  How cool is that?

Some of the things that I love about Mustang Island and Port A is the warm water and calm seas.  This trip the calm seas have been a bit of a downer as the waves are small.  Usually they are a bit more fun.  Yesterday I had a rare moment to go out by myself and I floated on a board up and down the gentle waves and it was so peaceful.  The ocean is such a cool place.

Another cool thing about Port A is  that you can go out pretty far into the water.  Growing up in North Carolina the waves were rough, and it was always a challenge to get past the breakers to calmer water.  Here there are small waves, a huge sandbar and then more medium waves.  I have never gone so far out that I was up to my shoulders- I don’t even know how far out I would have to go for that.  The beauty of always having this huge sandbar is that there is a little area close in where the little kids can jump in and wade around.  The bad part of this is that clumsy girls like me forget where the sandbar ends- so yesterday when I wasn’t paying attention I fell into it and twisted my ankle.  No big deal- but ouch!

The other not so good thing that happened last night when we were out on the beach doing a nighttime treasure hunt with flashlights and glow-sticks

one of our condos started leaking water all over the floor.  We were wondering why there was almost zero hot water- turns out it had a leak.

By late last night the water was everywhere.  I took a picture of the repair guy laying on the flooded floor with his big belly and loads of tattoos but it was a bit blurry so I won’t post it.  Besides it would have been much more funny if his butt crack was showing, and it wasn’t.

So today we packed up all our stuff and moved to a new condo, with a better view

I think the best part of trips like these is that the kids are making such great memories.  The cousins talk about places we have stayed in years past, which ones were the coolest, which ones sucked.  Hanging with cousins that they get to see once a year can be a crap shoot- but they always seem to get along so well.  Especially the three oldest boys.

Life at the beach is good!