Chez Nous in Maine: Bappy Hirthday!!

To the king of spoonerisms. Rain was forecasted for last Friday (the 26th), too. But we didn't let it stop us from going to the beach. It was Mike's birthday wish. We were going, even if we could only stay an hour. Turns out, though, that it didn't rain one drop while we were there. We had the beach (pretty much) to ourselves. It was a perfect day. We played frisbee, jumped waves, swam, buried each other in the sand and built sand castles. I played "Here comes the crab" for an hour with Liam and Lauren before they got tired of it. It's a game I made up. We buried their feet, then I would dig my hand down into the sand and say "Here comes the crab" and grab their toes and tickle their feet. It was so fun. We are a beach lovin' family and hope for at least a bazillion trips this summer.

Mike called it a "Pay Off Day." It's days like this that he worked so hard for in nursing school. A whole lot of fun, money spending, stress free, obligation free weekday off from work. It really is nice to only have to work three days a week. His schedule affords us many opportunities to do things together.

The water was way too cold for Mike and I to swim. (Remember being a kid and when there was no such thing as- water too cold to swim in?). It took the kids a few minutes to get used to it, but once they were in, they stayed for hours.

Is he growing up, or what?

There was lots of kelp that kept washing up on the shore. Lundi made a skirt out of this big piece.

And this was Lundi's gift to her favorite Papa:

She made it out of kelp, seaweed and shells.

Harrison had a great time digging and building roads, rivers, bridges and mountains.

Lauren was not quite so fond of the chilly water, so she spent most of her time burying and being buried. Oh....and being cute, because she is really good at that.

Cheeeeeeeky!!

I laid Audrey down on the beach towel so she could have the experience of laying on the beach. Sweet Lauren took it upon herself to make sure that Audrey got to experience sand between her toes. She loved it. It was so sweet, I cried.

And this was my absolute favorite moment of the day:

She loved being buried:

And Liam....he loved the waves until one over took him. After that, he wouldn't go out past his knees. He learns fast, huh?

When he finally slowed down, and we went to go take showers, he was "feeeezin" and shivering. Of course it didn't help that the showers were cold. They may have even been colder than the ocean water. I didn't take one, but everyone sure was cold, with blue lips and everything.

Then there is little AudPod. She was so pleasant at the beach. She either slept, laid on the beach or sat in her stroller, content, watching the waves.