Vacation

On Day 1 we drove 7 hours, with everyone grumpy because of the slowness and the traffic non stop, and then we stopped at McDonalds, ate and gassed up, and were relatively merry the final 3 hours, arriving just 10 minutes before the office where we had to pick up our rental keys closed for the day. Ten minutes later and we'd have had to find a hotel.

Day 2 the beach was just awesome. I got a little work done in the morning, felt a little better (have been battling something), and hit the beach. It was high tide, so there was very little beach, and the water was chilly. But we stuck it out, the water went down and got warmer, there was more beach. After lunch, suddenly, it was beautiful and we played in the water, found shells and rocks, and Kate spent I believe an hour and a half digging a hole in the beach so she would have a little pond to sit in. It was her thing, and I let her have it. Helped her some,,but I can only dig a pond next to the ocean for so long. She didn't mind. We ate fish tacos at Guapos and they were great. Jack ate a taco, Kate had some quesadilla. We got ice cream.

Day 3 we went to a bigger beach, arrived earlier, stayed much later, and had a great time. Jack met up with some other boys and a massive game of whiffle ball broke out. It was 2 on 2 when I left for lunch. It was probably 8 on 8 a couple hours later. When I pulled Jack away to eat his lunch, and we went out and rode some waves for a while, just bobbing like tops, I realized fully that all Jack needs to be happy is playing a game with a group of kids -- it's one of the things that makes him go.

"Wasn't that great, Dad? We were playing ball, and then they invited us over, and we were all playing ball!" I was still happy from the bobbing up and down in the waves, where it's just so peaceful,,and the waves so massive, that it was like we were alone in the world for those 5-10 minutes. But I said yeah, Jack, I know.

When Jack went back to finish his game, Kate and I took her boogie board out. I held it and she clambered on, then rode the waves out and back again, over and over. She's a little water bug; Jack likes the ocean but is plenty happy playing on the beach. Kate liked running back and forth into the waves, laughing and shrieking at the big ones.

We made a big sandcastle. They both helped, Kate amusingly bringing water even though every fifth wave reached us anyway. At one point she was about to pour the bucket when a wave washed over everything. We laughed and built again.

We met up with a college friend of Emily's and his kids, all 3 who were there were close in age. Kate happily played with one, digging holes together. Jack fidgeted until he could rejoin his game, but once that ended, he returned to make these new friends. They played in the frigid water together and ran around. After 7 hours on the beach we staggered home, ordered a pizza, and it was fantastic.