Summer break, Day 2

Was planning to take the kids to a playground or something today. But it was really hot, so instead we went with the go-to for hot days, the beach. Told the kids, they celebrated wildly. Loaded the car with chairs, towels, and snacks, and we were off.

I feel like I've written a lot about our beach trips, because they're awesome, so I'm going to stick with highlights:

- We saw a couple of huge crabs with big legs like tarantulas or something. I picked Kate up to show her, Jack I pointed them out repeatedly until he finally said he saw them (I'm not 100 percent sure he did). Kate probably did, because she was a little wary of the water for much of the trip.

- Saw some horseshoe crabs, too, which Jack had just read date back to dinosaur times. So I told him that that dead one we'd seen a few trips back, which he touchingly tried to save by picking it up with a shovel and carrying it into the water (still the most awesome moment all year I think), was maybe just tired from being alive for 100 million years.

- Played football in the water with Jack. He talked about throws being "super gonzo incredible" throws or somesuch, the idea being it was a really, really big throw, and even more impressive to catch them. He also had interesting rules on what constituted a catch. If it didn't hit the ground, he caught it. Since we were playing in knee-deep water, they never hit the ground, so everything was a catch, worthy of vast celebration.

- Kate ate an entire bag of Pirate's Booty, this popcorn-like snackfood, I believe. That's what I get for turning my back for a bit.

- Putting on sunblock, I missed a couple of spots on Jack's cheeks, so he looks like a football player who used red eyeblack. Oops.

- They had donuts (left over from the previous day), apples, goldfish, pretzels, Pirate's Booty, and I think some other kind of snackfood. Not much "I don't LIKE that," from either party today.

- Jack taught Kate how to jump over waves in knee-deep water. He jumped, wobbled, stayed upright. She sort of jumped and got washed over. Spluttered water, but smiled.

- At the end of the trip, they met another apparent brother-sister couple, I'd put them a couple of years older. The four of them spent half an hour digging a big mudhole and making a big pile of sand. I wished I'd brought a book, because they could not have cared less that I was there.

- I washed them each off in the ocean two or three times before leaving. I'd wash Kate off, carry her back to the towel, tell her to put on her sandals. She immediately plopped down on her butt in the sand, then put on her sandals. I carried her back to the water, rinse, repeat.

- We drove home and the kids read magazines and drank from their water bottles in the back. Later, they'd sing songs at home, Jack probably something about burping or farting, Kate something about how being naked is funny. They're something else, those kids.