Heigh Ho...

Vacation is officially over. I'm not a huge beach person, but my Sister-in-law is. She's also a stay at home Mom who is good at setting a schedule and I depend on external forces (my job) to structure my day. My SIL also has 4 kids and I have two, so she sets the pace at the beach. Around 8:30-9:00, everyone is up and has eaten breakfast, brushed their teeth and dressed in a clean swim suit. The kids (11-6) line up to get lubed up with sunscreen.

We carry 2 unbrellas, 5 chairs, boogie boards and other stuff out to the beach and set them up. We also have couple of coolers packed with drinks and snacks. (So what that we are only only a footballs field length away from the beach.) But it was nice this year as the older boys are help carry more. We did not need to use a wagon this year.

About 10:15-10:30 is snack time and 11:30 is pool time. We come back, change into a dry swim suit and each lunch. After about an hour of relaxing, it's time to lube everyone up again.

My SIL is happy as a clam to not leave the island. Hubby and I would have liked to have eaten out dinner about two or three times, instead of just one, but hey, look at the money it saved. But By Thursday, we had had enough sand and sun. So we took the boys and drove down to Myrtle beach for the greater part of the day. I was surprised that they did not complain about being away fromt he cousins, but they seemed ready for a beach break. They were trhilled to have a few dollars to spend at the arcade and they we played minature golf. We have a nice (and expensive) lunch and returned to the beach cottage by 4:30.

The drive home went well. When they boys argues over the remote for the DVD playing, They were told to turn it off for a while. The trip took us about 10.5 hours. A lot less then we expected. I suspect the roads are getting better.

I was not able to get as much reading done as I expected. I felt like I needed to keep an eye on the boys in the water. The 11 YO spent a lot of time in teh water. But he did not get surfer's rash this year thanks to the surf shirts I bought them. I got them a set of shirts and trunks form Land's End earlier this year. They have wore them a lot while playing with squirt guns outside, field trips to pools with day camp and at the beach. I also pick up them another shirt for half the cost of the Land's End one at Old Navy.