Our Day At the Beach
We woke up on Saturday morning earlier than usual. I was already awake at 5:00am to feed the babies and change diapers, so I decided to go back to sleep at 5:40am. I heard Dad’s alarm go off at 6am. He prepared the picnic basket and poured water in the canteens and collected the towels. I was up at 6:30am to feed the babies – again. And change diapers… again. The children staggered out of their room and put on their swimsuits. After a quick breakfast of waffles and butter, we piled into the van at 7:30am.
We arrived at the beach a little after 8:00am. The gate guard who collects the parking fee wasn’t yet ready to collect ours. She mentioned something about its being hot and Jesus Christ, but I don’t think she was praying. We unpacked the van and made our way past the pavilions and grilling stations, over the sea wall, and to the ocean side. We were the only ones at the beach, save the handful of weekend triathletes. Dad found a cozy spot within shouting distance of the water, in the shade of a few palm trees, next to a picnic table. We settled in by spreading an old blanket on the sand and anchoring the edges and corners down with our stuff.
I smeared sunblock on everybody like my mom used to do to my brothers and me: leaving streaks of white so that the wearers would complain about being streaked in white. Dad combed the shore and shallow waters for garbage, finding glass containers (which aren’t allowed at this beach) and old, rusty soda (or beer?) cans. I stayed behind on the blanket, changing diapers and nursing babies. My mother-in-law came by to enjoy the morning with us. She waded in the water while Dad built a wall for the sand castle. I nursed babies. Ty buried his shovel, so Dad and I got mad at him. Taylor showed no fear in walking farther away from shore and into knee-deep water. Kyle got his head wet with salty seat water and didn’t like it. I finally got a chance to go in the water but didn’t want to stray too far from the babies.
We had lunch on the picnic table. Toward our finishing, a county employee approached us and told us that a security guard will tell us not to move the table from the picnic area. Turns out that some other beach goers were bringing tables to the shore . So with the heads up, we evacuated the table and wondered how in the world anyone could carry or even drag a large picnic table through soft sand by himself.
As was foretold, a security guard, riding upon his steed sand-mobile, approached us and told Dad that he wasn’t allowed to move the picnic table from beyond the sea wall. “Do I look like I can move a thing that large?” answered Dad.
“In a moment of superhuman strength, you could.”
“Do you see drag marks?”
“Uhmmm….”
“I have a family of seven that I need to watch. I don’t have time to move a picnic table. This table was here when we arrived.” Finally, the guard changed his attitude, while never getting off his steed, and radioed the county employee to come move the table back to its proper place.
We packed up our belongings, except for the buried shovel, and made our way back to the van. We said good-bye to Grandma and thanked her for stopping by. We got home at 11:00am – just in time to finish sleeping. And we enjoyed the rest of the day recovering from our MORNING at the beach, which would be a more appropriate title for this post.
