Beach Bunnies

We had been in St. Simon's no more than an hour before Clare was chomping at the bit to hit the beach. So while Donna and I went to the grocery store for provisions, Tim and Larry took the kids to check out the beach, which was fortunately about a two minute walk from the condo. This was a big grocery trip, and we took our time. But we still made it back to the condo well before Tim and Clare. And when she did finally wander back, Clare was fairly well walking on air, and Tim was swept right along with her buoyancy. Clare adores the beach, and her enthusiasm for it is infectious. Tim really didn't have enough words for how fun it was to just be with her on the beach, dancing in the water, listening to her thoughts soar and watching her smiles beam. Best of all, she told me repeatedly and contentedly, "We had so much fun!"

The following morning I went for a beautiful run along the beach, where I noticed an almost unholy amount of jellyfish. Apparently they wash up on the shore during the high tide mornings, and retreat in the afternoons. Clare wasn't thrilled with this news, and Danny even less so, considering he is simply not the beach comber that his sister seems to be. We did return to the beach that afternoon, after a nice trip to the blessedly heated pool. Tim reports that Clare gamely pranced around declaring, "This is just as much fun as yesterday!" even though she was clearly very wary of the lurking jellies. Said sea menaces became an obsessive topic of conversation for both kids. But they didn't completely rain on our beach-going parade, so over the next few days we took several walks along the beach, and even dipped our toes in a few more times. That said, the pool quickly overtook the beach as the preferred locale.


While Clare perfected her mermaid routine, Danny stuck to his boyish ways. By which I mean that no matter where we were, he really just wanted to play sports. We played baseball on the beach, we played it at the pool. We played various forms of golf/hockey/bowling inside the condo, not to mention his cleverly inventive game of cup-and-sunscreen-cap baseball: a plastic cup was the bat, another was the pitcher's mitt, and the sunscreen cap was the ball. Surprisingly fun!



Tim was the dedicated sand castle architect, which the kids occasionally deigned to assist in building. The masterpiece is really all his, however.


While Danny preferred to play ball, Clare and I brought our own sports enthusiasm to the beach: cartwheels. We worked on our tricks repeatedly on the sand, which was a lot of fun even if it wasn't a visual treat. We haven't quite mastered the synchronicity yet, but we're happy to practice all summer. Here's hoping the jellyfish stay away from our future beach trips. Regardless, I think it's obvious we've figured out how to make the most of it.