Sand Phobias Are For Sissies

The last time we went to the beach Riya was freaking out about the sand in her toes.  And the water.  And the dogs.  And the sun.  And the…  Well you get the picture.  We couldn’t leave her with those negative thoughts of the beach if we ever wanted to enjoy a family day out there ever again (or you know, if we move there), so we decided to go back there for a full day of sun soaked bliss.

First we stopped off at Long Beach Mall to go and get some yummy lunch to stuff into our face.  Seeing as this was day one of our eating “right”, we headed to the Food Lovers Market.  WOW!  I was so surprised at all the yummy things there!  We got some goodies and headed off to the beach to eat them.  We found some parking and proceeded to unload all of our things.  We normally get a lot of strange looks being a multi racial couple with 3 children, but now we had Knox wrapped up on me while I was carrying a tent and the food, the girls carrying their toys and Seth carrying a massive bag packed to the brim with chairs, sunscreen, towels etc and a massive umbrella.  I think it took us 45 minutes to get all the way down to the actual beach – stopping in between to quickly run the bags a little further up the beach, return to the girls and run with them to the bags (and repeat!).

When we got to a spot near the waves we set up camp – literally.  We set up our 2 man tent, umbrella and chairs.  Who knew you needed all these things for the beach?  Once we were safely inside we devoured our food like we’d never eaten before – not even using plates.  Just ripping the chicken off the bone, even the girls got tucked in.

Knox and I spent most of our time chilling in the tent, chatting and taking sneaky pictures of the girls like a stalker.  He is such great company – let’s me talk about whatever I want and doesn’t judge my singing.

By the time we got to playing with the sand, Riya was loving it.  Literally lying on her tummy swimming in it and shoving her face in it, then licking it off her arms and legs.  She’s so normal I know.

Kyla’s new obsession is to be a mermaid.  She demands that we go and buy her a mermaid tail the next time we are at the shop.  The other day she told me she wants to go live in the sea and when I said that she’d be all alone because we didn’t have tails, she replied, “No, my fwends dere”.  Because Ariel is real people – very real!  So Seth turned her into Ariel!