37/52: Beach Week

 I was greatly in need of a vacation, I think we all were... And I still feel like I need a vacation? Oh yes, that's right, "vacation" with kids is really just a trip, because they don't magically stop fighting just because we're at the beach. Well, actually there was zero fighting on the beach, just only when we were in the house. Because obviously drama rests for no one.

But anyway, it was mostly very lovely! Homeschooling is totally worth it just for the money you can save by vacationing off-season, since the price on this house directly on the beach dropped by a solid 50% solely because it was the week after Labor Day. Highly recommend. (This is a stupid reason to homeschool if you have no other good reasons, do not homeschool solely for the vacation opportunities)

Our first day there, Lucy spent the whole time in the sand yelling, "Oh no!!! Yucy! Payin' in da sand!!!" and running around in circles gleefully. The next day she realized seagulls existed, and thank goodness Andrew was there to watch all the other kids and keep them from drowning in the waves, because Lucy didn't care if anyone followed her, she would just take off down the beach chasing seagulls whenever she saw them. This is the same child who must be held by me nearly all day long, so while it was nice not to be carrying her, I did have to stay pretty close because she was convinced that if there were no seagulls around, it was totally okay for her to just go "walk in da waves" and head straight into the ocean.

Other than chasing seagulls, she also really enjoyed picking up whatever shell fragments, trash, seaweed, etc she found on the beach and saying "Coooo-ul shell!!!" before discarding it for something even cooler. Thankfully I was able to get her to quit trying to taste everything pretty early on, because those tiny shells are pretty darned crunchy and she definitely found a cigarette butt one day. Ew.

Everybody else was far braver in the water than the last time we were at the ocean (four years ago! that makes a big difference!!). They were thankfully not brave enough to try going in deep enough to actually swim, but John Paul, Cecilia, Mary Claire, and Peter all loved getting knocked down by waves and letting themselves being dragged backwards until they dug their knees into the sand to stop (they call this "arm surfing" and it results in heads full of sand), and Elizabeth was willing to do a little wading but mostly staying with Edith and Lucy making sand castles and sand ice cream cones and the like.

Andrew lost his glasses in the ocean, I lost my hat on a boat ride, John Paul lost a water shoe to the waves, we all got CRAZY amounts of bug bites when we took a day trip to see wild horses and didn't take the mosquito warnings seriously, but we're home and safe and sound! Everybody is pretty pleased that we were able to see dolphins, wild horses, tons of different wetland birds, and I don't remember what other wildlife... So there we have it, it was an educational trip too!