Vacation--Part 3

So I failed to mention in my first vacation post a very crucial event. On Monday, after I got back from running, I sent Scott and the older 5 kids down to the beach to play while I got showered and fed Owen. They had only been gone about 15 minutes when I heard stomping outside. I looked out to see Joshua, with a grouchy face, stomping up the deck stairs. "That didn't last long", I thought to myself. A few minutes later, Scott knocked on the window and I looked out to see Aaron crying and soaking wet clear up to his hood. Scott stripped him down to his underwear and used the hose outside to spray him down (to get the sand off), then threw him in the hot tub to warm up. The other kids were happy to join Aaron in the hot tub. Scott came in and told me the story. The older kids had been trying to outrun waves, and Aaron tried to join them. They were getting too brave and got out a little far, and when a big wave came, Aaron wasn't able to outrun it. It knocked him down and started rolling him in to shore. Scott rescued him, but it REALLY scared Aaron. I can't count how many times I listened to Aaron tell me his story of how "the Pacific Ocean knocked me down and then Dad saved me". After that, for the rest of the trip, Aaron refused to go anywhere near the ocean. He stayed as far back as he could, and just dug in the sand. For these pictures, I had my camera way zoomed in.



When I had gone for my run, I found a portion of beach half a mile up that had really cool old trees (driftwood) that had washed up on the beach. I thought the kids would enjoy seeing it, so we drove in the suburban up to that section of beach (Thursday morning), then walked out to the beach. Even though it was freezing cold and quite misty, the kids had a great time playing on the beach.
















At first Nate was happy to dig and just watch the ocean...





But then he got braver and joined the older kids in the fun of running from the waves.

Shortly after this picture, the ocean caught up with him. A wave knocked him down and he couldn't stand up. Scott raced out and rescued him, but he was soaked through from head to toe. I was really worried about him because it was so cold and he's so little. So Owen and I took Nate back to the suburban. I stripped all his clothes off and started up the suburban and ran the heat full blast to get him warm. While we sat in the warm suburban, Scott took the other kids up the beach a little way to see a cool fort built on the beach. You can see on the kids' faces--it was COLD!