Samantha's first blog

Posted By pamelamyers on September 2, 2016

Oh, but alas, it is. We finished our last beach vacation for the year. We went down the shore again while Krista and Adam had their house, on Saturday, so that we had as much time as possible since we needed to leave by mid-week so that we could be home for Sam’s meet the teacher day. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful, and the water was as warm as could be – about 76-78 degrees! Gorgeous and no rain at all.

Sam spent time doing what she normally does. Like this. Getting as sandy as humanly possible.

Strangely, the first day, there were a ton of washed up jellyfish on the beach. Only that one day though. They are kind of gross, but Sam liked exploring them. I’m just glad they were gone by the next day!

Ryder loves the beach and he and Sam played the whole time. Right now though, he was more interested in his cookie. 🙂

And his Grandmom, Loretta!

Mark spent most of his time doing exactly this. Hmmm….what is wrong with this picture?

Although, while Ryder and Sam played, Krista and I weren’t exactly working hard.

We did get Sam into the water a lot to do her “wave jumping”, but boy was it rough! Hurricane Hermine was coming and the waves were crazy. Higher than normal and they could knock you down so easily.

We only had one day where we really saw the jetty so Sam and Mark went exploring. There wasn’t a heck of a lot to see, honestly, not like some years. And the beach has been sadly lacking in sea shells. I guess it’s good that the beach is getting cleaned up, but it is sad for the kiddos who like to collect shells.

Time for a family portrait!

Maddox had seen a lot of kids using body boards since there were actually some waves. Adam bought him one and he did pretty well for his first time out. I think he caught a few waves!

On our next to last day, it was very odd. I was sleeping (shockingly, Sam actually let us sleep a lot on this trip) and Mark came in and told me there was almost no beach. The incoming storm was making the sea crazy. High tide came up really high and a lot of the water hadn’t washed out. We usually wind up with a shallow pool of water somewhere on the beach every trip, but this was insane. There literally was almost no beach. You can see how big this pool of water was that Mark and Sam are standing in. Then there is some beach, then the ocean.

It was crazy deep too! Usually, it pools around your ankles or low calves at most.

Pretty early in the day, they came and dug a trench to let the water run back to the ocean. It worked pretty well. The lake stayed, but by the time we were done our beach day, it was much narrower and not nearly as deep.

Something we hadn’t done in a while! Sam’s shadow is catching up to us…She’s growing so fast.

While the lake was there, Rich took Sam and Ryder to play. They liked sailing Sam’s boat.

Two best buddies. 🙂 Sam had so much fun playing with Ryder. She will be a good babysitter one day. In the afternoon while Ryder was napping, Sam was so lost.

Maddox took some time out from the water to hang out with his Grandmom.

Since Maddox wasn’t using his body board for the moment, Adam took Ryder and then Sam on a ride. Sam liked it, Ryder not so much.

Sam did keep busy, but Mark and I both noticed that she doesn’t play like she used to. I brought many less toys down to the beach then normal, and even less of them actually made it to the sand. Most days, she wanted her Barbies, a bucket, a shovel and not much else. It is yet one more sign she is growing up. We don’t even make many sand castles. I think next year, we probably won’t be bringing much. Mark and I are going to try to bring more “family” activities. She likes playing with this water bouncing ball Mark bought on our last trip down, we sometimes play paddle ball, and we saw some people playing bocce. I would rather do those types of things on the beach anyway. Heck, some day not too far off, Sam will be more interested in sitting by herself reading a book or a magazine than doing anything with us!

One toy we did bring a few days was her sand buggy. Since cars need somewhere to go, I made a system of roads. Sam liked it and so did her car.

I can’t believe our beach time is over! Noooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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