Beach Fun, Really

Ahhhhhhh. It was an absolutely glorious weekend at the beach.

Beautiful blue sunny skies, white puffy clouds, lots of sunshine and...
...snacks!

We are a snack loving family. And we don't discriminate. Salty and sweet, we buy them all. It's especially bad when Sissy and I go food shopping with no breakfast in our tummies.

Uh-oh.

Methinks that's a dangerous thing to do.

Yup, it was.

We came home with Pringles, Chips Ahoy regular and Chips Ahoy with Reese's chunks, pretzels, cheese, dip, crackers, Cheetos and lots of ice cream.

Holy jumping snacks, Batman! How did all those things get in our cart?And if that wasn't bad enough, we headed to the local clam shack, Arnold's, for the best onion rings in the world.

And the fried clams.

And fried lobster.

And fried oysters.

Maybe some fish and chips.

A bowl or two of clam chowder.

And chicken strips for the non-seafood eating contingent.
And before anyone jumps on me, I did not eat all that by myself. That was what the whole group ordered, for Pete's sake! But we all share and test and taste and try things out before we settle down with our own meals.

We worked off all that food by digging waterways in the sand, building sand castles and skim boarding.

I didn't skim board.

I have a strong sense of self-preservation.
We went over to the way cold ocean side and played chase the waves. The Man and I started playing that with J. and K. when they were small and now we go over with our nieces and Sissy and P, her hubby. Only the kids and I actually play.

It involves getting up as close as you can to the water and when the wave comes crashing in, you run like the dickens away from it and try not to get wet.
This works most of the time. But every now and then disaster strikes and someone goes down. And gets wet.

Really wet.

Like we-can't-go-to-Ben-and-Jerry's-'cause-we're-too-wet wet.

That's why I play. I try to keep everyone up on their feet and dry, dry, dry.

I don't want to miss Ben and Jerry's because some small squirt tripped over their own two feet.

And I am NOT mentioning any names, D.

We took walks on the beach and looked for fish and shells, rocks and sea glass.

We found shrimp and put them in the pail.

Until we discovered we were starting to cook them under the hot sun. Then we released them to be free again. And go find their shrimp mommies who were probably looking for them.
The Man was not being anti-social. Really.

He was trying to cool off and headed out to a sand bar to get closer to the water.

But it looks likes he's anti-social. I tease him about that. But he thinks it's a compliment.

I heart the beach. And my family. The only thing missing was other Sissy. They couldn't be with us.

We'll see them next time. Right, other Sissy?