Beach 2014: Tuesday

Somehow every year we end up next to the bozos who fish with live bait. I mean, we keep moving to different houses, and yet we end up on the beach 10 feet from the guys with the huge fishing poles and the live bait. I don't know how we do it.

This year at least they weren't reeling in sharks.

This year it was stingrays.

Still not really what I wanted them pissing off and then putting back into the water right next to us, but I'll take angry stingrays over angry sharks, I suppose.

Tuesday was the day we started hearing more serious warnings about Tropical Storm Arthur, which was working its way up to hurricane strength. But it was still well south of us, and the water and skies remained calm and beautiful for us that day.

We adults started to talk a little about contingency plans, but if we were to leave, we'd need to evacuate the next day -- the storm was going to come through on Thursday, so we'd need to head out on Wednesday -- and that would mean forgoing half of our week. NOPE.

Miss out on moments like this? I DON'T THINK SO.

The Big Kids (read: everyone besides Amelia) dug a big hole for Amelia to play in.

I was good with that. I was relatively certain the stingrays would have more trouble finding her in there.

And I was hoping the stingrays would see the bile-green rashguards on the boys and run screaming instead of attacking. So really? I felt like all my bases were covered at this point in the week.

Once Amelia got in the hole, I thought the other kids would lose interest, but it actually became kind of a tourist attraction. She wanted water for the hole, so they started hauling in buckets of seawater for her.

She's not spoiled at all. AT ALL.

Patsy, Bill and Andrew were in the middle of a rousing game of beach baseball when the fisherman visible between Andrew and Bill, below) caught something on his line again.

It took him more than 10 minutes to reel it in, and quite a crowd gathered on the beach to watch the action.

When he finally reeled the stingray in, it was kind of pitiful because it was one that looked like it had lost its tail and stinger in a fight.

The fisherman's friend was really gentle with it, and he was kind to all the kids who had gathered. He held the stingray gently so they could feel it before he released it back into the ocean.

I think all of our kids who had wandered over touched it. Impromptu science lesson at the beach!

When we went inside for lunch, it ended up being an "extended lunch" because of the World Cup. The sectional couch saw a lot of action during those World Cup games that week.

 

Tuesday evening, we went back out to the beach to get some pictures in our #OIB2014 shirts. I'll share the full results of that tomorrow, but here are several fun ones:

I don't know why they got so interested in "pyramids" this year, but all of a sudden they all wanted to build them -- and EVERYONE wanted to be on the top row.

We hit a hiccup with this foursome when Jake was dying -- DYING -- to be the top of the pyramid, but since he's built like a Brick House, no one could support him. So, they had to settle for something a little more traditional.

I wish I could tell you that we got a terrific shot of our little family. I CANNOT.

The faces, Internet, the faces.

Eventually Jake at least tried, but Amelia was having none of it. NONE of it.

The people sitting in the chairs around us were literally in hysterics, because we had a team of four people standing behind Adam. They were jumping up and down, yelling, "Who do you love, Amelia? Anna! Elsa! Doc McStuffins! Who's the best princess? Sophia? Anna? WHO DO YOU LOVE?"

And she just alternated between Dead Eyes and YOU PEOPLE ARE STARK-RAVING MAD.

Apparently Jake was momentarily amused, though.