This is the part of the vacation where we discovered the batteries in the camera were nearly dead and didn't get them replaced until two days had passed. I hope my verbal descriptions suffice.
On Wednesday, we were pretty darn tired from all the fun and walking and heat and sun we had been participating in. We also had a resort presentation to attend at 10:00 in the morning to encourage us to buy into the system (we didn't). As an incentive, they gave us $75 in AMEX gift cards, which we promptly used part of to buy lunch at the Mexican restaurant across the street. This was another of the blessings we felt during our trip.
We also learned the lesson that, if your kid takes their hat off, hangs it on the chair, and promises to take care of it, you should probably put it back on their head (or your own) if you want to remain in possession of said hat after leaving the restaurant. We didn't notice it was missing until the next day, and when we checked with them that evening, they didn't recall anyone turning it in and couldn't find it in any of the areas they would have kept it. Hopefully the child learned a lesson as well as the parents.
We had seen several signs on Interstate 8 that said "Beaches", so after lunch, we got on the interstate until it ended (right by Sea World), and then followed some surface streets until we came to a beach. It turned out to be a beach where you could let dogs run freely, and many people were indeed doing so (we noticed on the way back out that the non-dog beach was just about 50 yards away, but it didn't really matter to us). The kids had never seen the ocean in person before, and they had a great time walking in the sand, running sand through their hands, getting sand all over their shoes and socks, grinning at the dogs until they came close enough to cause screaming and panic in our little 'fraidy cats, and enjoying the cool breeze. I should mention that all of this happened in the 2 or 3 mintues it took to walk from our car to the actual shoreline.
Being silly landlubbers, we went to the beach without any swimwear, towels, or any other useful items. Thus, the youngest (who waded about a foot into the ocean before a tiny wave made him rethink walking) and myself (who felt that someone might need to stay dry and thus didn't even remove my shoes, let alone enter the water) were the only two out of the six of us to not get soaked to at least mid thigh. My wife, older sons, and daughter all had great intentions of wading without letting the water get above the bottom of their shorts or rolled up pants, and the waves quickly removed them of all such inhibitions.
My sons enjoyed wading until they realized their shorts were wet, and then deciding to race the small waves back to shore, only to trip in the water, nearly literally falling onto their faces, and soak themselves head to foot. They repeated this event a few more times for good measure.
My wife and daughter enjoyed finding sea shells. My daughter continued to collect them in the shallows while my wife went to help the boys. My wife was soon realizing that her pants wouldn't survive the rise and fall of the water without a good soaking, and so she and the boys walked out about 40 yards and enjoyed the water. My daughter, not seeming to notice that the tide was slowly rising, as was her distance from the shore, continued to squat down and pick up sea shells until a slightly larger wave managed to tag her backside and the bottom of her pants.
I mostly held onto my youngest as he grinned and waved at dogs until they got close enough to cause him to squeal and backed up a few steps every few minutes to avoid the tide.
After about 30 minutes at the beach, my wife found some free floating seaweed to bring home many of the shells my daughter had collected, my sons were wondering if they could find a way to get the sand off their legs so they could put their shoes and socks back on, and we all made our way back to the van. After a few attempts at brushing sand off with hands and napkins, we finally just put the wet, sandy feet into plastic garbage bags and headed back to the resort. Judging from the general sense of elation coming from the kids, we were starting to feel that the short time at the beach was putting in some serious competition to Sea World for most favorite activity of the vacation!
Upon returning to the resort, we showered and bathed those in need of it, started some laundry, and just relaxed. Napping, watching TV, playing on the computer, and snacking were all enjoyed. We layed the youngest down for a nap (which he had not had much in the way of in the previous 4 days) around 5:00 PM PDT, and he ended up sleeping clear through to 7:00 AM PDT. The other kids and I made our daily outing to the resort pool for a bit, because as every kid knows, you can't go swimming too much while on vacation. We finished the day up with dinner brought back to the resort from a nearby Wendy's. It ended up being a great day for fun and true relaxation.
More to come later.
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