I love the ocean!!!

Jumped the gun a bit

Last week when I said it was the last beach day of the season - I guess I jumped ahead a bit because we were back at the beach yesterday and this time we had CJ along with us! The waves were incredible and the sun felt so nice! It was a really great time.

Last beach day of the year!

Since today appeared to be the last 80 degree day for a while we decided to ditch our plans and head to the beach this morning! It was so beautiful, peaceful and fun! We had a great time!

We usually don't bring much home with us, but this time K really wanted to bring some periwinkles home. She has been enamored by them since we went to a night tidal pool class two years ago. I figured just a few periwinkles wouldn't hurt! 

NOT Back to School Day - TAKE ONE!!!

We had planned a NOT Back to School Beach Day for a large group of home learners in our area, but unfortunately we had to postpone it because of Hurricane Irene power outage related issues. We are hoping that it will be able to run later this week, but today we got to take an adventure to a new spot that we have tried to go several times, Ellisville Harbor in Plymouth. We brought a few friends along and ran into some more as well!

It was a really nice relaxing day. The kids climbed on rocks, hunted crabs, relaxed after their lunch and I got to take some interesting photos!

Ironically we had to reschedule our day and our local schools are all had to do the same as well - they won't be going back until next week as they are all in outage zones! 

Mid-Afternoon at the Beach

My favorite time at the beach is mid afternoon, just after the littlest kids have been brought home for naps and just before the rowdier teens show up.

I love how the tidal pools are filled with things that are easily found and captured - of course we always release them, but it is great for the kids to be able to see such a wide array of things.

Beach Days of Summer

During the summer we spend a lot of days by the pool and some at the pond, but the days that KM always seems to remember best are the ones we spend at the harbor with our extended family. In my grandparents family there were 12 siblings, so when I say extended, I mean extended. It always amazes me how most of these cousins don't see each other more than once maybe twice a year, but they talk about things that happened last year, or the year before, as if it was yesterday!

Besides getting to see each other, the best part for the parents is remembering playing with our cousins in the same way and being grateful that our children get have such a wonderful experience and make great memories!