Thursday, August 07, 2008
We went to Walnut Beach in Milford today with Melanie and her kids and the "Van Curdy's." It was a little overcast as we headed out and I was a little stressed because as usual, I was trying to do to much and running behind schedule. So I ran out the door feeling a bit grumpy and pessimistic. But almost immediately after we arrived at the very empty beach, the clouds cleared and the sun shined and we had a very nice time. We caught hermit crabs and baby crabs and snails. We waded in and out of the low tide and the big boys went swimming a little farther out. We threw rocks off the boardwalk, built sand castles, swam, and tried to do a couple of crafts.
The Sandy Hands Mosaic sort of worked. Ours ended up like this:
We didn't add very many shells and rocks, like they show in the example. And making an actual print in the sand proved to be kind of tricky. Plus, keeping thirteen kids and a million seagulls away from the plaster while it drys is a completely separate challenge. We made our prints in buckets so we could make them deeper and guard them more effectively. They were still fun to make and for kids that collect a lot of sea glass and shells and rocks it would be a great way to keep and show them all off.
The Solar Smores didn't do anything that the sun shining on my bag for four hours didn't do by itself. By the time we got around to actually placing the marshmallows and the chocolate into the pizza box, they were already very melted and messy. But it did melt the chocolate speedy quick and whether the chocolate was melted in my bag or in the pizza box didn't change the deliciousness of the treat. A better idea (from Family Fun) is to put the chocolate in a tupperware and let it sit in the sun while you play. Then let the kids dip strawberries, marshmallows, pretzels, graham crackers and other fruits and treats in the sun-melted chocolate. Less work--same yumminess. But hey, at least we can say we've tried it. And from the looks of the chocolate smeared all over the kids' faces, I'd say it was at least a somewhat successful project.
 
This is Justus and his oh-so-tiny-and-adorable-little footprints and Hunter disguised as good ol' Abe Lincoln. What a goof!
And here are the boys and the McCurdy's swimming in the "deep end" of low tide. All in all my bad day ended up being a nice day out with the kids and I suppose after two days of trying to unpack and recover from vacation, it was a much needed day out too. We left just as the storm clouds blew in and the first few sprinkles started to fall.
posted by Shana # 4:47 PM 
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