family beach evening

We went to the beach after Selene's baby shower. It was Steven's idea. I love it. Time change is making me happy! There's time to do things outside in the evenings! I say sleep shmeep. I love that it is lighter later!! I'll vote for anybody who promises to keep the time just like it is NOW year round. The darker earlier stuff is so dumb.

Dylan got a metal detector with his birthday/baptism Toys R Us gift card from Eirit our amazingly thoughtful gift-of-a-neighbor. He got it yesterday so didn't have much time to use it. Today, he found a weight in our back yard! One that my grandpa Rebeck brought over with a weight bench when he was training us to be big and buff. Dylan was SO excited to find that disk! Malia found some bullets yesterday when her grandparents took her to Ft. Desoto so Dylan really wanted to find some treasures like that. We didn't go to old battle grounds, just to Redington Beach. But that's the beach where I found that pink sandy camera last summer! I found its owners and mailed it back and it still works b/c it was waterproof. CRAZY story. 

There were two more metal detecting guys there so maybe they had already found the good stuff. 

A big ball blew by so the kids had fun chasing it. It was so windy that it flew. 

Tyler loves the beach and the sand and Steven wanted to get a picture of him. I had him run to me and give me a high five then run back to Daddy to punch his tummy. That's about the only bate we had for him. And Tyler bit! 

Tyler buried himself. We helped a little. 

Then he found a "swimming pool" into which he did a bunch of "cannon ball"s. 

Dylan decided we should walk to the Long Pier so we took a long walk with little stops like this along the way. Actually, Tyler and I stopped at this half-way spot while Steven took the boys to their goal. 

Then Tyler and I just sat on the dry sand to wait. Tyler's shorts had gotten wet so his legs hurt to walk from the chaffing and I didn't feel like carrying him all the way there and back then back to the car. We had fun taking selfies. 

And we talked. Tyler asked if the sun would go "pop" when it went all the way down into the water. I was blogging this from my phone at the time so was sort of just saying "yeah" to his questions. He looked at me and said "Don't Say Yeah." I realized what he had asked and had to explain what the sun did when it set. He also asked why that toy was dancing in the water. (A bouy was swaying in the water.)

 We saw a rainbow section in the middle of the sky. Just a piece of a rainbow.

As the sun got lower and Tyler wasn't running any more, he got cold and asked "cuddle me." I gave him my shrug to wear even though my under shirt would then be sticking out of my sleeveless dress. He's doing the "cold" sign here. See the top picture for our cuddle time. 

Isaac and Dylan came back to us to show us their 5 bottle caps, metal stake, and rusted chain they had found. They had also spotted some dead fish near the fishing pier. Thank goodness they didn't feel the need to show me those. 

The sun was just setting so we took a photo of ourselves. Tyler yawned, I think it was fitting, we were there for over 2 hours! 

We stayed for the sunset. All of these pics besides Steven's were taken through a ziploc bag which is my water/sandproof camera case. :) Good enough for the memories I say!