Tuesday at The Beach

Sadly it's the last week of Summer. And one of the great things about having a couple days off during the week is that we can do things during the week that a lot of people do on the weekends. Yesterday morning as I drank my 2nd cup of coffee, I racked my brain for what we could possibly do together that  everyone would enjoy. My mind wondered off to a couple of weeks ago when we were lieing on the beautiful beach in La Jolla on a Tuesday afternoon(I swear I will blog about that vacation this week!) That is when I realized we could do a beach day...today!

So I called a couple girlfriends to see if we could arrange it. My friend, Andrea, was super excited and ready to roll with her son and daughter. (She was the one who had originally told me about this beach in Alameda and I have really wanted to give it a try for a while.)

Dominic invited a couple of friends, we packed a lunch, and off we went. (This is where I feel the need to  justify my minivan purchase a couple of years ago...I had 5 kids in the car, including 3 teenage boys, 1 car seat, and 1 booster, all of our stuff for the beach, and room to spare. My "Swagger Wagon" is awesome!)

This beach was truly awesome! (Dominic said it was gross because it had dark sand and some seaweed. I had to explain to him that there's a big difference between Northern and Southern California beaches.) I loved that at this beach there were no waves (now I do love the crashing of the waves at most beaches, however when I am there with the little ones, it is nice that they can actually play in the water.) 

We could see straight down in the water, so the kids did lots of searching for crabs, shells, etc... 

There was also lots of digging and playing in the sand (for someone who said the sand was gross, Dominic sure did play in it a lot!)

There was even swimming...

Emma Kate loved it! And she was pretty daring, causing it to not be a very relaxing trip for Momma!

But it was a lot of fun watching her discover something new.

Gahhh! I love that girl!

Buddies... I can't believe how big these boys are getting.

And Trinity...such a sweetie!

Overall, it was a great day! All of my kids were so tired...and all fell asleep in the car on the way home.

Ahhhh....quiet time!