Day 5

And so begins another wonderful day at the beach!

Josiah was chased down the beach by a flock of birds...or at least that's what he was pretending!

They were awfully impressive to watch fly off in their perfect "V" shape.

Digging in the sand and finding all sorts of treasures is always so much fun.

Audra likes to walk on the beach....

and pick up shells!

Today we built our first sandcastle. It was lots of fun and turned out beautifully!

Audra helped dig the trench that we thought we needed to keep the ocean out until we were done (we were so wrong about that)

Here we are with "The One Claw Castle"

And then we waited...
Micah threw more sand back into the ocean

Emilia was relentlessly chased by the waves

We dug a tunnel so our moat would fill up quicker

And we waited some more...
Emilia went rowing in the ocean

Audra played in the waves with Nana

And then snuggled into her shoulder for a power rest.

We all played around the castle and did a 'High Tide' dance to bring the waves in sooner because we were all getting impatient and antsy

And we waited some more...
Josiah said I could "borrow his face" to take this picture--and how could I resist?

Micah showed off his handsome toothless smile and tricked all of us by crushing sand rocks with his bare hands

And then there was the attack of the Audra Monster!! AHHHHH!!

F-I-N-A-L-L-Y the tide got up to the pool for the tunnel and trickled into the moat.

We were unimpressed.
John decided to take matters into his own hands--enough with this waiting business!

One, two, three--POUR!

YAY the moat has water! Now we can all go eat lunch.

That afternoon we were back out for more fun. Micah left his mark on a piece of the beach

Audra found a beautiful shell that she wanted to show you

And then Emilia got cold so she and I came inside where she devoured more food than I knew she could eat in a single sitting. The rest of the crew stayed outside and played in the tide pool.

Only one day left :(

This day also brought us the fun phone call from John's parents saying that a pipe broke in our house and we had water gushing into our basement. It's always something, isn't it? Wont that be a fun "Welcome Home" gift?