One last day on the beach

Today was such a perfect day to end the trip on! We all slept in today, and woke up to Carole’s totally amazing breakfast tacos. After breakfast, the kids wasted no time in getting immediately out to the water. I hadn’t even drank a full cup of coffee before most everyone was already in the water. It goes without saying that we were much more vigilant about sunscreen today, and no one is more worse off than they already were yesterday, as far as sunburns go.

We made the most of today and spent probably too many hours out on the beach. But who knows the next time we’ll get such an awesome opportunity to hang out at such a rad beach? (Thank you again, Walter family!)

For dinner, Carole made chicken and sausage gumbo, and pie for dessert. If we come back in town morbidly obese, I would blame Carole, because her cooking is just way too good. After dinner we projected writing letters to Carson at his military camp. For some reason, we drew narwhals on most of them. I really hope Carson likes narwhals cuz….he’s about to receive a lot of them in the mail.

We had one last customary night walk tonight. We stumbled upon many awesome sand castles built by other people, which is really awkward in the dark because we basically all just ruined them by walking through them.

We’re going to have a really early morning tomorrow, so we can get into Dallas at a reasonable time. (And by reasonable I mean midnight). The kids are all in bed by now, and I feel like I should follow suit, seeing as I will be actually be driving tomorrow. Goodnight everyone! Expect one last post tomorrow! (Maybe….)

Rainbows and dolphins!!!

Today started out in the most epic way possible, with rainbows and dolphins! True story. While we chowed down on the delicious donuts the Walters were generous enough to get us for breakfast, dolphins swam close to shore while a rainbow appeared in the background.To say it was pure magic is an understatement.

And the day could only get better from there. We spent pretty much the entire day on the beach. Kyle, Durantula and I took a short break to go to an Urgent Care so Durant could get antibiotics for his sore throat (He ended up getting a shot in the butt, by the way).

It couldn’t be more obvious that we all spent the entire day on the beach. I think that it’s safe to say that we are all collectively, very sunburned. Some more than others. John’s back, because of sunscreen misapplication, is a mottled pink and white. He looks like a strawberry milkshake that someone forgot to stir. Claire pretty much looks like someone set her on fire. Stan managed to only burn the right half of his body, while leaving the left unscathed. And my nose is so red it apparently makes me look like the scarecrow from “The Wizard of Oz.”

After a full day of beach shenanigans, we went into the nearby town of Seaside for dinner. We set the kids loose to wander around town, but our time was cut short by incoming storms.

After dinner, we had our customary night walk. As usual, most of the kids just chased crabs the entire time. Added bonus: Weeman caught a water moccasin in a fishing net. Beaches at night just got a little more dangerous. Don’t worry though, he had wandered way off when he found the snake, and no other kids really got near it.

We finished up the night with iced coffee, and amazing cookies, thanks to the generosity of Carole Walter. We’re all pretty much hiting the sack now. We have one more beach day tomorrow, so we have to make the most of it. You better hope we have enough sunscreen!

Beach time!!

Hello again everyone! The blog is back!

We have all arrived safely at the beach, and are having a fantastic time.

Because of Stan’s presentation at the coach’s symposium this morning, and a certain missing part from one of the trailer hitches, we didn’t leave Atlanta until 1 today. We took a scenic route, and saw Auburn University in Alabama, as well as a grown man riding what appeared to be a big wheel down the side of the road, groceries in hand.

I’m proud to report that I managed to beat Kyle in the movie soundtrack game, where you guess what movie the song that’s playing is from. Kyle and I are both very competitive, so beating him at anything is a proud day for me for sure. While Stan was busy choosing songs for our game, he forgot to continue navigating. So instead of taking the detour we needed to, we continued down a road which very suddenly ended in a barricade. And that was it. No more road. Kyle angrily pulled the van to the side and yelled, “Stan! We’ve run out of road!”

We did manage to get back on our way, and arrive safely at the Walter’s beach house. (Gigantic shout out to the Walter family, for not only providing us with Dunn Bros. coffee throughout the trip, but also letting us use their fantastic beach house for these next few days! Thank you so much, Walters!!)

The beach here looks pristine, and the water is crystal clear. To say we’re all pretty excited is an understatement. After settling in, with the boys in one room and the girls in the guest house (and me in my own room!), Carole served us a delicious all-American dinner of mac and cheese and brisket. As if that wasn’t enough, she had cake for use afterwards.

After the sun set and it was thoroughly dark, we performed our nightly ritual at the beach: the night walk. Night walks are both fun, and terrifying, because you can’t see and there are crabs everywhere. Half the group is on the hunt for the crabs, snatching them up while squealing and thrusting them in each other’s faces, while the other half of us are happy to just turn tail and run at the sight of the crabs’ beady little eyes and disproportionately gigantic pinchers. Maxime managed to snatch up a crab, then force it to hold his flashlight for him in its little pinchers.

The kids are mostly all in bed right now, probably dreaming of swimming and more crab hunting. Tomorrow will be a day of epic shenanigans, so make sure to stay tuned!

Just a little post to get you by!

It’s getting late, so I have a short post for you all today.

We woke up early, and went to the gym for a last training day before nationals. We trained speed A LOT, and the kids are all looking super fast! Kyle took Claire and Rita to a Primacare because they weren’t feeling well, and they were diagnosed with strep. Those two and Shannon (who is also feeling terribly) are now quarantined in their own room. When the gym closed at 5:30, we booked it back to the hotel to make an all-american dinner: burgers! After dinner we watched the Incredibles on TV, and have been lazing around the hotel ever since. We have a whole day free tomorrow, so we’re trying to plan out fun rest day activities!

Stay posted for tomorrow’s post, which I’m sure will be both lengthier and more interesting!