Beach 2015: Sunday

If I publish one beach post a week until I'm done, we should wrap up just in time for Christmas!

Then I can get Halloween up by New Year's.

IT'S GOOD TO HAVE GOALS.

If you're just joining us, last week I published the first post from Beach Week 2015. We went in July. Shut up.

We all got up really early on Sunday and rushed right down to the beach.

Just kidding. We did not do that. In case you've forgotten, it was The Summer of Shark Attacks. No one rushed down to the beach, because we had a family rule this year that no one could go farther than ankle-deep in the ocean. (Raise your hand if you think my husband and boys obeyed that rule.) (Yeah.) (But other people did.)

Even though the media would have you believe we were wading in shark-infested waters, Ocean Isle Beach was as beautiful as ever.

I mean, we were all firmly on Dorsal Watch all week, but the weather was gorgeous and quite frankly, with fewer people in the water, it was easier to keep an eye on the few kids who ventured out.

Our crew mostly stayed on the beach itself and played games, especially early in the week. On this, Day One, they started out with a kind of a long-jump competition.

The long jump was good for the big kids, but Amelia wasn't into it. She was into the SAND.

She was so happy just digging in the sand that I couldn't stop taking pictures of her.

Oh, and she was obsessed with having her hair pulled back in a ponytail all week. She'd never let me do one before, but the wind was whipping so hard that she agreed while we were at OIB.

So, that first full day we did, um, PRETTY well with the whole "ankle-deep rule" thing.

I mean, I can't say with certainty that Grayson WASN'T turning around to check to see if I was watching when I took this picture, but ... let's say he wasn't.

I titled this one "Four boys looking wistfully out at sea."

(I'm not sure why Coleman was out there with Grayson, Nick and Nathaniel and Jake wasn't. Mystery.)

Oh wait. Here's Jake, lying on the sand. Mystery solved.

(This is hilarious to me. This blog post is as much of a surprise to me as it is to you. I'm scrolling through these pictures like, "Oh!" And "Oh!" And "Oh, there he is in the sand!" I have no idea where it's going until I get to the next picture.)

In case any of you have forgotten, I am a semi-professional blogger.

If memory serves AND IT DOES NOT, Jake was one of the kids observing the ankle-deep rule -- although he managed to submerge himself up to his neck in ankle-deep water.

Bygones.

Once the boys got bored of standing in five inches of water, they came back to shore and started playing in the sand again. Please enjoy how Nick went so many months without a haircut in order to have a "swoosh" that, when wet, his sideburns were almost able to wrap under his ears.

Amelia wanted "Thaniel" to dig her a "big hole," so he got to work on that.

He wasn't doing it exactly right, so he got some instruction.

While they were playing, I noticed the guys who had set up their fishing poles with live bait just feet away.

They've done it every year, on every beach we've visited, but this year it royally pissed me off excuse my French.

Every year they reel in baby sharks, but this year with so many obviously already close to shore -- so many NOT BABY SHARKS close to shore -- it seemed like literally begging for trouble to be fishing with live bait right next to families. Even families who were only going in the ocean "ankle deep."

I wondered if I made a point to zoom in on him, he'd get uncomfortable and quit fishing. Think he noticed?

HE DIDN'T QUIT FISHING.

Basically every day we just made everyone stay out of the water while their lines were out.

Not a huge deal, really. There was plenty of havoc to wreak on the beach.

Ima let you finish, but there were a lot of chefs in this kitchen. Might've been a few tears shed over the EXACT SPECIFICATIONS for this massive sand creation.

But all's well that ends well.

Finally it was time for lunch.

I KNOW. DID YOU JUST DIE A LITTLE?

Since we always beach it up over July 4th, we usually catch the World Cup while we're together. This is what that looks like.

And finally, for this day I'll leave you with one picture of Jack. While I was taking pictures of the World Cup Viewing Area, he jumped in front of my camera for a photo bomb, and it actually turned out pretty cute.

In all seriousness, I'm going to try not to drag this out until Christmas. I'm gonna shoot for Thanksgiving.

I'm an optimist.