God's Big Sandbox

David's brother Peter, my sister-in-law Stephanie, and their crew Mary, Nick, Daniel and John, came down from Dallas last night, with plans to hit the beach today. There was something called Gustav brewing out in the gulf, but that didn't thwart us a bit. There was no way we were going to disappoint 8 kids. This was Gabriel's first experience with sand and salt water and I haven't been out there in 4 years (David had graciously let me stay home with nursing babies, etc.), so I really wanted to go too. I have to admit I really don't like sand, but Stephanie said to think of it as a nice exfoliant for the skin. In that case, by tomorrow, I expect my skin to be glowing and looking fantastic. Maybe I'll even look five years younger.

The kid woke up just after 6AM this morning (much to our dismay), but that got us out of the house before 9AM, destination--Galveston. Rebecca rode with Uncle Peter so she could visit with her cousin Mary, and Nick decided to ride along with us. The kids always want to be with their favorite cousin, and have a yummy snack from Aunt Stephanie's stash ;-).

We got to Stewart Beach and staked out our claim. Gabriel headed straight for the water and I actually had to hold him for a couple of minutes until we got settled, put on sunscreen, etc. Then I took him out to the waves, and he LOVED it. Every time a wave washed over him, he'd giggle. After a while, he figured out how far to go in (which was just a few feet in from the water line), and he'd just plop down and splash around in the water. Here's a couple of pics of our beach baby.
















The first thing "the boys" did was commence "Operation Tunnel." Apparently, they do this every time they go to the beach. They built up a huge pile of sand and then proceeded to dig not one, but two tunnels underneath it. All was going well about halfway through the project. Just as Peter and David connected under the second tunnel, they had a cave-in. There must have been an engineering design flaw somewhere in the plans. So the project was abandoned in favor of cooling off in the water. But here's how the construction site looked before the collapse.

Not bad for a couple of Eagle Scouts. Sorry boys, don't quit your day job ;-)

It was about this time the kids all told us it was lunchtime. Sure enough, the sun was right overhead, so we spread blankets out and ate. Gabriel kept trying to scavenge for more chips, and probably ate some sand along with the pieces he dropped. But oh well, I bet it was good for his digestion.

The kids all wanted to get buried in the sand, so of course, David gladly obliged. If you look at the top of the pic, you can see Mary, then along the bottom are Nick, Joshua, Christina, and Rebecca.

The girls thought it would be nice to make a little kiddie pool for Gabriel, but he didn't care for it; he much preferred to go play by himself. Still, it was a sweet effort--they even put up an umbrella for him.

By this time, everyone was starting to get tired, and a couple of kids were starting to sunburn (Mary and John are so fair, they burn even with high SPF sunscreen and multiple applications). So we packed up and headed to the showers. It would have been nice to take the ferry and go out to Crystal Beach, but it was just better to stay where we were, and have showers and bathrooms at our disposal. The day was perfect, nice breezes, water at an optimal temperature, and not too many people to compete with for space. All in all, a great day.

This last pic was taken of our kids-- Joshua, Rebecca, Christina and Gabriel. Yes, I stole this idea from Katie's blog, I take no credit at all. But this will probably be one of my favorite pictures ever. I hope to get it enlarged, and definitely in black and white. This is why I LOVE having four kids...