The Beach

Living in the mountains, most of my grandchildren have never seen the ocean. My grandson, Anthony, has been on a cruise with his parents and has played on the beach, but he was quite young (maybe 2??) and probably doesn't remember too well. Alakina saw the beach when she too was about 2 years old with no memories except for pictures. My other 3 *Littles* have never seen the ocean...until last week.

After our 2 days at the Magic Kingdom, Aja wanted to make sure her kids saw a REAL beach. We live between two beautiful lakes with "beaches" so to speak, and they get so excited each time we pass them on our way down the canyon, but what they saw in California was more than they could have inagined!

We decided that Newport Beach was the closest to where we were staying and we headed out one morning. It was a bit windy and the temp was about 70° F which can be a bit chilly with the wind off the ocean. But it didn't stop us. The girls were SO excited and were out of the car almost before we came to a complete stop! They ran to the sand and we quickly marked our beach territory with our towels and blankets. They LOVED every second of it!

   

I have never seen a kid eat so much sand in my life as Tage did! And he didn't stop! He took handfuls and poured it over his head, on the blankets and in the food. It was everywhere and he didn't care. He was enthralled with the seagulls and chased them unmercifully! The girls quickly started making their sandcastles and collecting shells.

Aja and Ryan took them to the waters edge thinking that since the water was so cold (all of the surfers had wetsuits on) that they would put their toes in but that would be it...Uh, no...Alakina wanted to go all the way in. She had no fear and didn't worry about the water temp in the least!

of course, they had to bury their dad!

It totally took me back to when we used to take our kids to San Diego with their cousins. They would play so hard and collected so many shells. Sand was always everywhere and my nephew was always chasing the birds...it was complete Deju Vu for me! Such sweet memories of great times with my own children.