Crane Beach

This past Friday was my last Friday off of the summer, and Rob's last official day of his summer vacation, so we decided to do something we hadn't done all summer... pack up the kids and head to the beach. We decided to do this 2 weeks in advance, and then of course it was only a 70 degree day, but it was actually nice.. and maybe why I didn't completely hate the beach, which is how I thought I felt about the beach. I mean normally it is sooo hot you cannot stop sweating, and then you go into the freezing cold water to cool off, but exit coated in salt then 80% of your body becomes coated in sand.. you eat sand, and you come home with sand.. it is just well... hot, sweaty, salty and sandy... ugh! But Friday was great! A little bit of sand, and no swimming for Rob and I, just some wading.. the water even felt nice and not chilly at all, perhaps because the air was cooler. So I guess maybe next year we'll venture to the beach a bit sooner in the season! The kids ABSOLUTELY loved it, and Cole keeps going to the door and getting his shoes telling us he's going to the beach! I guess he really liked it! I took way too many pictures, and am posting way too many as well.. but it was so hard to narrow them down!

Wherever we go Cole always manages to sneak some sort of toy, to Nevada it was a dinosaur.. to the beach it was an elephant!!

Cora's first trip to the beach.. made so much easier by her being able to sit, perhaps that is why we didn't go earlier.

Cole loved the sand, he wouldn't stop throwing it, until finally we showed him how much fun the water was!

Rob and Caden were the first to venture down to the water.. hoping to entice Cole to join them, it didn't work the sand was too tempting!

... and then we got Cole to change into his beach gear, and he slowly made his way to the water.

... and then we couldn't get him out of the water! This kid is a beach man!

Monkey see Monkey Do!

... and Caden was a wave jumping fool! He must've jumped 100 waves! He also was made for the beach, and in the end didn't want to stop digging.. for treasure. Every piece of driftwood was obviously a shipwreck!

... See?! I was at the beach too!

The boys lead the way to explore the sandbar...

... the sandbar area had these beautiful ridges in the sand, although they made it a bit uncomfortable to walk on.

Me and the boys' feet, Rob said his feet were too ugly.

By the end Cole was turning blue! The kids totally went in the water, not always willingly (the waves), and with the wind I can't imagine it was very warm!

... Goodbye beach! We'll see you next year for sure!