Feelin' Hot, Hot, Hot!

It is hot here.

We decided that to escape the heat here at home, we would take a trip to the beach for the day. The kids and I went to the store on Wednesday morning and bought all things beach related... beach towels, beach umbrella (really a patio umbrella because Wal-Mart doesn't sell beach umbrellas here), beach floaties, beach pails and shovels, beach whatever else we could think of. We were ready! Only 2.5 more days until we left! (Try to explain to a 3 year old on Wednesday morning that you are loading up on all this fun stuff so that on Saturday you can go to the beach... but you can't play with any of the fun stuff now because Mommy doesn't have anywhere for you to dig with your new shovel and pail except the flower bed that she just spent the better part of a long weekend digging and planting and mulching so that it would look pretty...)

Saturday arrives... we get up and are packed- new beach accoutrements, beach blanket, picnic lunch and more snacks than we know what to do with -and on the road by 9:00am. Only an hour later than we had hoped for, but whatever. We decide mid-drive that we are going to try a beach that we have never been to before, but is very popular not only with fellow South Alabamians, but with people all over the world. Since we have never been to this particular beach we decide that it would be a good idea to stop at the Visitor's Center to see just what we have in store for us (and because I really had to go potty!). After making the necessary first stop, I chat with the nice ladies that are there to give you info about where you should go, what you should see, etc. Only after finding out where the best "family" beach is, how to get there, where to park, yadda, yadda, do they mention that there is a "double red flag" posted for the day. Meaning that the water is closed. Yes, after driving in the car for almost 2 hours with Son asking (for almost 2 hours) if we are at the beach yet, the water is closed. As in, don't get in the water or the horrific riptide will suck you all the way to Cuba.

What the heck are we going to do now?

The nice ladies suggest a few alternatives... all of which we explored and decided against for several reasons:
1- Cost lots of money
2- The water is closed, so everyone else that drove almost 2 hours to go to the beach is trying to find something else to do too.

After all agreeing that so far this trip had not been fun, let's just all complain about it loudly together and get it out of our systems now we decide that we will go to the beach, not get in the water and at least have some lunch and play in the sand for a while. Turns out that was a good decision. The weather was perfect for a day at the beach. We found a great spot to lay everything out and dig in the sand (while eating sandwiches for lunch). We decided to try our luck and get in the water, a little. Neither of the kiddos really wanted to spend much time in the water. Son only wanted to get his calves wet and Daughter really didn't want anything other than her big toe to be wet, so this worked in our favor for the day. (It was nice to know that we wouldn't have to worry about any last-minute trips to Cuba.) The amount of water play was just enough to cool off when we got too hot and just enough to rinse off when we got too sandy.

Roughly 4 hours after arriving at the beach we decide to pack it up and head for home. The trip home was much easier, mainly because we knew which home we were heading to (unlike when we decided to try the "new" beach and just decided that it was "that direction"- not really knowing it was "that direction"). After arriving home we were still hot- it was about 15 degrees hotter at home than at the beach- but we were all so tired and had such a good time that we didn't care how hot we felt.

Chalk one up for another not-so-spur-of-the-moment-change-plans-in-the-middle-of-the-trip kind of family trip.