not your typical beach day.

August 20, 2013

Wow. Today was the most interesting day.

It began with work, but only for a couple of hours. This week is out of the ordinary anyway, because it is the only week of the entire year that the school is open, but there is no daycare. Because I have to be in meetings, that means I cannot bring the kids. There is always preschool - it never closes. But that means that Silas and Jeremiah have no where to go. Last year, my greatest ever SIL watched the kids for me, but this year she is back to work. So, for the first time ever, we have had to get a real babysitter.

The plan was to go to the beach after work with my SIL and my 4 beautiful nieces. But, a little drama did unfold. Zoe forgot her swim suit bottoms. Going home to get them was totally out of the question, because it is just too far. I told Melanie that I would happily take the two big girls if Zoe could wear her suit. Let's just say a twelve year old was not about to wear her momma's swimsuit. A little pre-teen drama unfolded and a few tears happened. I had a two piece, so I offered to give Zoe my bottoms and I would wear Mel's suit. Crazy, right? It was the big swimsuit switcheroo. But, I really wanted Zoe to get to go! So, after figuring all of that out, I ~~crazily~~ happily ventured off to the beach with five kids, all by my lonesome.

On the way, I realized I had not eaten anything, nor did I have a drink {all the kids had lunches in tow}. I saw a Rite Aid in Coronado and there so happened to be a parking spot on the street {if you know Coronado, it is a parking disaster, a huge tourist location and you often have to drive around for half an hour for a spot}. I parked my car and quickly ran in to grab something {I was not in there two minutes.}{literally.} When I came out, there was a police officer by my car. I wouldn't know, but Dusty has told me the police officers are notorious for taking their job really seriously! The lady was so rude. I mean, I understand you gotta do your job, but come on - politeness goes a long way. She hollered at me, "You are about to get a ticket. You caused this lady to park ILLEGALLY." What? I was SO confused! The lady she was referring to had pulled in right before me, as there were two spots, one in front of the other. I didn't realize there were actual spots {with lines} - I just thought I was parallel parking on the street. She parked, I parked. It so happened that my front tire was just over the line, so I wasn't completely in my spot I guess. I mean, barely. I apologized for my wrongdoing and the police officer quipped, "You need to PAY more attention to what you're doing. Get outta here."

YES, ma'am! I booked it before she could give me a second glance - or change her mind about the ticket. Now that my heart rate was rapidly increasing and my blood pressure rising, the quest was on to find the perfect parking spot near the beach. At least I had my Pop Chips.

Amazingly, we found another great parking spot. Now, all I had to do was walk with my 23 pound baby, carrying two bags that probably weighed at least the same, while keeping 4 other kids moving steadily in front of me on the sidewalk, and trekking down what seemed like a mile of sand to find the perfect spot on the beach. We found it {don't you worry} - and set up camp.

The first thing on the agenda was to eat lunch before they got all wet and sandy. Eli is obsessed with seagulls and found it fascinating and fun to feed them {while I lovingly mentioned not to feed them near our spot}. I fed the baby his food and figured I'd snack later. After eating, we all headed down to the water. Not five minutes later, a woman came up to me and said, "Hey, I was sitting right by where you are and some seagulls just came and attacked your stuff. You may want to go check it out and secure your things." Wow. Okay.

Sure enough, the seagulls somehow managed to rip open my unopened bag of Pop Chips and mangle them. Jerks. Well, there goes my "lunch". I made sure everything was put up nicely and went back to the water. We had a blast. Baby J was having a ball playing in the sand and the water, while the other four were jumping waves, body surfing and building mud castles {with the wet sand}.

The sun decided to hide behind the clouds, so Maddy, Jeremiah and I ventured back to our spot to warm up. Everything was in a layer of sand. It was SO windy - windier than I ever recall at the beach - so all of our things were practically buried. We were getting sand in our eyes just from the wind blowing. I tried to shake everything off as best I could with a baby in my arms. I let Zoe, Silas and Eli play for as long as I could keep Maddy and baby J from "freezing to death". After about 2 hours total at the beach, we packed up and headed back to the car {with half the sand from the beach with us.} Ha! The sand at Coronado is glittery. It is beautiful, with gold speckles - but it does NOT come off. Maddy said it looked like Tinkerbell had thrown up all over the beach. Crazy girl.

We made it home with four out of five kids asleep. All in all, we had a really good time, despite some of our funny happenings. Maddy proclaimed it "not a good day to go to the beach", even though she still had fun. Swimsuit disaster, an almost ticket, an attack of the seagulls and a sand storm could not rain on our parade. And, we all made it home in one piece. Thankfully.