Wednesday, August 6, 2008

The Beach-Guest Blog


We (Chief's nieces Biz and Bunny) are now half way through our 11th beach week trip. Our whole family congregates to a beach, this year is our second at Bethany Beach in Delaware. Some of our activities have been...

-THE FOOD: A breakfast run to the Fractured Prune donut shop. It is a small shop that specializes in fun flavors such as creamsicle and peppermint patty.

- THE POOL: We have made one or two pool trips across the street, but it has been more popular with the younger crowd. Grandpa nicknamed them the synchronized belly flopping team in honor of their creative leaps (and in time for the Olympics).

-THE BEACH: We have experienced many waves so far in our lives, though this year's are not the biggest we have found many ways to entertain ourselves. J-man and Princess, two of the six cousins, enjoy standing or lying at the breaking point of the waves and allowing them to pummel them...always producing a few laughs and a lot of sand filled bathing suits. AJH and J-man, because of the chaffing, have created the penguin squad, named for their funny walk. Once we decided we were going to take on the task of creating our own sand city (AJH was the architect). It started as a wall and quickly grew to a mini-metropolis with a residential area, a business center, a town hall, and its own fall out-shelter/escape tunnel. At the end of the construction, we decided that our creation was not as pretty as the neighbor's, but it was both practical and authentic looking (theirs look 'store bought'). Monkey's favorite activity is to wait for the waves to come up and bury his feet. One time he waited so long (exhibiting his ginormous amount of patience), the sand covered his shins (he was hoping to get to his knees). This year he has become very brave about facing the waves. While out boogy boarding, he hung onto Bunny's back and rode a huge wave onto the shore. Once while waiting for the caravan to arrive, Uncle Sock arranged a touch football game, the big boys against the big girls. Though we are slightly biased, the girls played an excellent game and out maneuvered the boys for their 14-7 victory.

OBSERVATIONS:

One thing we have noticed about this beach week compared to beach week pasts is the pace at which the week is going. The little ones are much better at entertaining themselves which has led to more downtime, conversations, and family-wide card or other games.

Playing the card game Pit is a tradition going on since one of the early beach weeks. If you have never seen the game played, it involves yelling, pounding of the table, and the winner yelling PIT!!!!! It has become a right of passage for the older grandchildren (Biz, Bunny, AJH) to the play the game with the adults, we remember watching them play when we were little. The little ones (J-man, Princess, Monkey) were not overjoyed at having to watch from the sidelines, but we think they ended up enjoying the loud and chaotic experience in the end.

Now we are going to help finish preparing our Greek party. We have food, home-made tunics and an actual model of a temple.

Hope your summer is going well: Atlanta (Bunny) and Pandora (Biz)

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