Our annual group photo. It's impossible to get everyone smiling!
We've found that staying three nights is perfect. It gives us two half days and two full days at the beach. Because of the way my mom's work schedule was this year, we went to the beach from Sunday-Wednesday. Easter came early this year so we ended up leaving Dode to celebrate Easter by himself when we left for the ocean after attending church. He went over to his grandparents to celebrate with them, his parents and his cousins Tracy and Erin who drove up from Utah for their own spring break celebration.
After getting home from church, we changed into casual clothes, ate a quick lunch, gave Dode hugs and set off for fun. We picked up Isaac Colson at his house on the way. When we got to Isaac's, we had to wait a few minutes because he'd gotten the pick up time wrong and was in the shower when we arrived. He cut his shower short and we headed to the beach. As I pulled onto the freeway, I told myself, "Next stoplight, Aberdeen." (Aberdeen is a town 30 minutes from Ocean Shores.)
It takes about 3 1/2 hours to get to Ocean Shores. As soon as we checked into the hotel and unpacked, we hit the pool. It's not a very big pool but we had it to ourselves. After spending an hour at the pool, we changed into warm clothes and made our first visit to the beach. It had been beautiful sunny weather at home but it was overcast and windy in Ocean Shores. A little cold weather isn't enough to put a damper of the children's fun. When we got back to the room, we found that my mom and Millie had arrived.
We hadn't had our annual night Easter egg hunt yet. I was too tired from the day to hide eggs that night, so I promised Miriam we'd do it on Monday.
The hotel we stay at (Best Western Lighthouse) has a free breakfast buffet. After breakfast Monday morning, we did the usual ocean activities: pool, eat, beach, repeat twice.
Elizabeth and Millie preparing to fly a kite.
Making roads in the sand.
Isaac, Anastaya, Isaac Colson
Elizabeth
The most exiting thing to happen on Monday was my nephew Gabriel getting in over his head in the pool and trying to drown himself. When I saw him having trouble, I got up, checked my pockets for electronics and prepared to jump in. I realized he was close enough for me to reach out and I could grab him without going in, so I did. He lay on the side of the pool gasping for a while. I encouraged him to get a life jacket on before getting back in and after a while, he was ready to re-enter with life jacket on. He kept to the sides of the pool for the rest of the night. At one point he came up to me and said, "Thank you for saving my life Aunt Stephanie."
My mom treated everyone to pizza on Monday night. One thing that holds true for Ocean Shores each year is that there is always a long wait for food at any of the restaurants. I think when the spring break vacationers descend, there's just too many people for the waitresses to keep up. After dinner, I went down to the pool again and this time I got in with the children after they begged me to. After an hour and a half of them hanging all over me, choking me and wanting me to help them swim, I finally called an end to the fun and we headed back to the room. Miriam reminded me that I'd promised an egg hunt that night. I told her, "Oh Miriam, I'm so tired from the day, can we do it tomorrow." Instant tears. So, I got on my warm clothes and set off to the beach with our Easter eggs. As I drove there, I thought to myself, "It's times like these when we really have to dig deep to be a good parent." I hid the eggs at the beach as quickly as I could and went back to pick up the children.
Armed with flashlights and plastic bags, the children hit the beach and began scooping up eggs. I'm practical and lazy so I don't bother stuffing candy into the eggs. I tell the children that they earn a quarter for every egg they find. They can buy their own candy or save it for something else. About half way through the hunt, Miriam came up to me crying. She had a hole in her bag and had lost all her eggs. The other children had unknowingly picked them up. The older children felt badly for her and re-hid some of their eggs so she could find them. When we got back to the hotel and counted out the eggs, Gabriel was the big winner with a grand total of $4.75. The rest of the children found between $3.00-$4.00 worth of eggs.
Easter egg hunt, day two.
They had so much fun finding the eggs at night that we re-hid them the next day.
Tuesday, in addition to pool and beach time, those who wanted to got to go horseback riding. Millie, Anastaya, Gabriel and Miriam ended up going. Elizabeth would have liked to but she had a tummy ache. Millie had such a good time, she said she wants to go every day next year. Anastaya would have had more fun but she forgot to go to the bathroom before getting on the horse!
Miriam on her horse
Miriam and Gabriel, our hotel in the background
The kids also got to go bumper boating at the family fun park. It cost my mom $45 to get all seven children on the bumper boats for a five minute ride. We've been going every year for years but she thinks we need to find a new, less expensive, tradition.
Wednesday there was time for packing up, swimming in the pool, and visiting the beach one more time. It was the nicest day of our trip, sunny with little wind. After spending about an hour on the beach, trying to get a nice photo of the three littlest ones (Gabriel, William and Miriam) and making some sand castles, we got ready to set off for home.
Elizabeth and my mom wandered down to the water's edge one last time. As they were walking back to the van, they noticed something moving in the sand. They could just see a mouth opening and closing. A fish was buried straight down in the sand. They watched for a while and thought it was the weirdest thing ever. My mom decided we all needed to see so she came back and got us.
When we got back to the fish, we saw that he'd worked his way out of the sand until his gills were exposed. I'm not sure how he got stuck in the sand, but I knew that wasn't where he belonged. I dug around him with my hands and scooped him up.
I had my shoes on but the children were barefoot so I passed him off to Anastaya to take him out into the water. Before she could make it to the water, she dropped him. She picked it up and decided to throw the fish to the water where he landed in about 1 inch of water, bouncing off the sand. Everyone headed out to the water where they tried to coax the fish to start swimming. After a few minutes, he seemed to be reviving from the trauma of being stuck in the sand, dropped in the sand, thrown onto the sand, and finally returned to the water. They turned around and started heading back towards where my mom and I were waiting in the dry sand. They hadn't even made it to us before a seagull swooped down and grabbed up the fish. "No!", was the cry of the group. "All that work just for a seagull to eat it!" My mom told them, "It's part of the circle of life."
My mom invited us to have lunch with her at the Westport Winery.
They have a cafe with really tasty food and desserts. If you ever go, get the frozen chocolate peanut butter pie, AMAZING! Their grounds are covered in art and they had a maze, large chess board, and trails for the children to explore while we waited for our food. The older children really enjoyed their meal and think it needs to be added to our yearly events.
After lunch, we headed in to Aberdeen to visit the Star Wars shop.
The day camp theme for this year is Outer Space and I thought I might find some things I could use. The store is amazing, a jumble of Star Wars memorabilia. The friendly owner greeted us as we walked in and let us know that they were running a special that day, everything in the store half off. I knew from my research on Trip Advisor that every day is a half off day. I found a broken bin where the ships were missing pieces. For $5 each, I found a large millennial falcon, an x wing, and a storm trooper helmet. When I was checking out, I showed him my key chain, a Darth Vader ring that I'm using in honor of day camp. He told me that since I had that, he'd pay the tax on my purchase. Isaac found a few patches to sew onto his jackets and Elizabeth found an R2D2 M and M figure. Isaac thought the store was amazing and thinks we need to stop in for a visit each year.
Leaving the Star Wars store behind, we set off for home. After fighting a bit of traffic and dropping Isaac Colson off at home, we made it home around 7:30 pm. Isaac got the sewing stuff right out and sewed on one of his patches.
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