Duck 2

Mornings at the beach started per usual, doing a Bible lesson while Caleb may or may not have been paying attention, with the added pleasure of having Jason working at the table with us.

Below, Caleb learns the fine art of blowing paint bubbles to make bubble prints.

Everyone takes a brain break; Caleb with the ubiquitous cars, Liz and Jed throwing a nerf football that “fell into the cart” when we sent Jed and Ada to get groceries. 

Jason working through it all with astonishing powers of concentration.

On Wednesday evening Ada insisted on making dinner from scratch to take a break from eating out, so the rest of us took a walk while she was finishing up cooking.

We found this little guy sleeping alone on the beach, which seemed….unusual.

And not quite healthy.

On our way back he at last stood up and moved, so maybe he hasn’t yet flown over the rainbow bridge.

The first couple days of our trip it was 30 degrees outside and windy, and we discovered after the first night that the lower two levels of the house, where three of the kids were sleeping, did not have working heat.  Despite a visit from an Australian air-fix-it guy who sounded like Crocodile Dundee, during which I worked very hard to a) not laugh and b) understand him, it was deemed irreparable in the short term.  So we were glad the weather warmed up, and it was so nice by later in the week that we started taking our lunch out to the beach to enjoy it midday.

The ocean was not, BY ANY STRETCH, warm enough to swim in.  And though I did dip my toes in when I was very warm from the sun and/or jogging, I was careful not to get any of my clothes wet.  This did not, however, keep my children from wading in, or indeed, from actually putting on swimsuits and submerging themselves completely, as Liz and Ada did Thursday afternoon.

After dinner at a fancy-pants restaurant

Caleb fending off the encroaching tide by throwing sand at it