{"id":4847,"date":"2009-06-22T20:36:53","date_gmt":"2009-06-23T03:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/?p=4847"},"modified":"2009-06-23T09:58:30","modified_gmt":"2009-06-23T16:58:30","slug":"beachweek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/2009\/06\/22\/beachweek\/","title":{"rendered":"Beach Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bugs or no, I am a beach girl.\u00c2\u00a0 I love the water, the sea shells, the sounds, the smells, the sand, and the sun.\u00c2\u00a0 At the beach, I can wake up and walk in the morning.\u00c2\u00a0 My hair naturally lightens.\u00c2\u00a0 My skin clears.\u00c2\u00a0 I loosen up.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Pools help, too.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, in our scheme of beach days, pools are an absolute necessity.\u00c2\u00a0 Our perfect schedule: Beach first thing in the morning.\u00c2\u00a0 Move to pool late morning for snacks.\u00c2\u00a0 I go up to make sandwiches around noon.\u00c2\u00a0 Eat lunch around the pool and drip dry, then head upstairs for naps.\u00c2\u00a0 Late afternoon swim, movies after an early dinner, and everyone to bed at a reasonable hour.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

We built different sand castles each day.\u00c2\u00a0 Here is the octopus.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Will and I snorkeled, used a net, or just reached down and grabbed up sand dollars and shells to decorate whatever creation Paul and Kate supervised on the beach.\u00c2\u00a0 (The big guy above has round shells on the ends of his long arms and sand dollar eyes.)<\/p>\n

We took days off, too, to give us all a little break from the sun.\u00c2\u00a0 One morning we drove to Destin.\u00c2\u00a0 After missing out on a fishing boat trip (it filled up before we arrived), we went to play in the water fountains in Destin Commons, took our first-ever build-a-bear experience (Will’s dog has stars on him, has a surfboard and is named “Fred”, Kate’s dog has a t-shirt and is named “Boy.”)\u00c2\u00a0 Then we walked over to the movie theatre and saw “Up.”\u00c2\u00a0 The kids hugged their dogs, wore the 3D glasses, and took in all the movie without incident.<\/p>\n

(This particular trip wasn’t without sacrifice… after we missed the boat, we had a little parking lot fender-bender.\u00c2\u00a0 Guy flying into the lot didn’t stop at the stop sign and Paul backed into him.\u00c2\u00a0 No damage to our car; his passenger door bent in.\u00c2\u00a0 We exchanged insurance information and Paul reported the incident immediately… we’ll see what happens next.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Will and Kate were great play partners, particularly in public.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

I had no idea there was a National Flip Flop Day.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

I found at least 30 hermit crabs.\u00c2\u00a0 They were all over the sandbar, in every single shell I picked up, no matter how large or how small.\u00c2\u00a0 I took a few to shore for the kids to look at.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

And also because this shell was the COOLEST SHELL EVER.\u00c2\u00a0 Paul called it Goth Crab, which was very appropriate.\u00c2\u00a0 The shell was actually darker (the umbrella is red and casts a red reflection on everything) — actually a black color — with spikes along the edge.\u00c2\u00a0 Seriously cool.\u00c2\u00a0 I secretly hoped this guy would hop in another shell or Paul would let us take him home.\u00c2\u00a0 (Both were equally unlikely.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Isn’t that shell cool?<\/p>\n

We let them run around in here for about 20 minutes before setting them free.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Here is the big fish.\u00c2\u00a0 Originally the idea was the have a HUGE mouth and put Kate inside.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, Will and I found pointed sand dollar pieces to use as teeth on the bottom of the mouth (hard to see due to their color, but they are there!)\u00c2\u00a0 The boogie board became the fin, gills defined the sides.\u00c2\u00a0 He reminded us of the piranha fish in the Amazon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Another off-beach day was at the Pensacola Air Museum.\u00c2\u00a0 Initially we were meeting my Mom here to bring her back to the beach with us.\u00c2\u00a0 She didn’t show, but we enjoyed the museum so much we returned on the way back to New Orleans on Sunday (with me limping along).\u00c2\u00a0 During our first visit we watched the 3D Grand Canyon IMAX movie, River at Risk, which we heartily recommend.\u00c2\u00a0 Both kids were awesome.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

And they loved the overwhelming museum and the amazing exhibits.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

The ocean was calm for the majority of our trip — so calm that we found it impossible to sneak out to go sailing (something we’ve been trying to do now for over a decade).\u00c2\u00a0 Well, technically we were thinking of going on our last afternoon after having an early dinner.\u00c2\u00a0 But we made the mistake of splitting a frozen adult beverage and were a little too fuzzy to sail afterward.<\/p>\n

It was so clear that seeing all sorts of fish was incredibly easy. Just beautiful.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Will was determined to catch a fish.\u00c2\u00a0 I caught a jellyfish for him that he took to the beach and studied with several beach-friends, but managed to only catch fish when Will wasn’t around and I wasn’t trying.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

The fish nibbled our feet.\u00c2\u00a0 It tickled.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

We made drip castles, with steep walls in the front so that the water had to slowly work under and around the fort before taking it out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

I found another full sand dollar and a huge side of a shell.\u00c2\u00a0 Neither were found with the snorkel, though… my new friend is the net for shelling! (This makes me want to spend more time snorkeling there in the future — maybe out farther once Will is a little bigger and a bit stronger swimmer!)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Paul brought a shovel and dug wide holes in the shade for the kids to play.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

They built castles and put chairs in their holes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

We didn’t sail, we didn’t kayak, we didn’t walk the Pier… but we swam, snorkeled, shelled, walked, flew kites, crabbed, watched movies, and had a wonderful time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bugs or no, I am a beach girl.\u00c2\u00a0 I love the water, the sea shells, the sounds, the smells, the sand, and the sun.\u00c2\u00a0 At the beach, I can wake up and walk in the morning.\u00c2\u00a0 My hair naturally lightens.\u00c2\u00a0 My skin clears.\u00c2\u00a0 I loosen up. Pools help, too.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, in our scheme of beach […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[133,109],"tags":[92],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4847"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4847"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4864,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4847\/revisions\/4864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}