Shore Score

Our week at the beach is over. We are home and sunburned (in my case), nut-brown (in Little Miss's case)


and exhausted (all of us). Charcoal enjoyed his time at the beach but is happy to be back in his usual home in the kitchen.



As usual with these trips, they seem to fly by in an instant during those magical times when the water sparkles and the sky is deep blue,



and drag on forever when the kids are tired, hungry, crabby and whiny. But we always end up with lots of good memories.



This week we seemed to enjoy particularly beautiful weather. We had rain only once, and it didn't start until after 5 p.m. so it didn't affect our trip at all.


On Monday, I made the mistake of sitting with a portion of my arm outside the shade of the beach umbrella. Despite sunscreen and a cover-up, I ended up with a nasty burn on my upper arm. I got a rash guard to cover it up, but was taking no chances the rest of the week:


The water was reasonably warm and there was much frolicking about.



Another thing that I enjoy about our trips is the way we've created some family traditions. We have one or two restaurants we enjoy going to, there is always mini-golf and salt water taffy eating, and we usually eat in a couple of nights, which the kids love. (Our annual lighthouse climb will take place in August.)


On the last day of our trip, we were at the beach to squeeze in a last couple of hours, when much to our dismay we discovered:


JELLYFISH!

Seriously, I cannot remember the last time I saw so many jellyfish in the water. Just standing by the water, peering in, we could easily count ten or twenty in the area right in front of us. Swimming was just not possible.

But we were staring out at this bee-yoo-tiful beach!


The boys had the brilliant (?) idea to start catching the jellyfish. I want to go on record here as saying that I was not in favor of this idea, envisioning a dropped bucket and a nasty sting, but you know boys.

(Big ones as well as little ones.) Little Miss initially reacted with "Ew!"

but then scientific curiosity -- as well as a thirst for revenge caused by a jellyfish sting she received a few years ago --- convinced her to take a closer look.


Soon she was catching jellyfish with the rest of them.


No one got stung, and the kids were fascinated by this slice of aquatic life.

Now we're back home and getting the avalanche of laundry done. Even though I miss the beach, it's still good to be home.