At the Beach: Round 2

 Besides all the water and sand play, we've been doing lots of other fun things.

We've been taking a lot of pictures!  Not just the snapshots you've been seeing on the blog, either.

 Mxyl has gotten really into photography, and I've always been really interested.

Mxyl's

My brother is a professional photographer, and we have a number of other photographers and artists in our friends and family, so it's great to see it in another generation!

Another of Mxyl's

 We've also been flying kites, something we love, but can't do where we live (too many trees and wires).

And, lest we forget our favorite thing to do at the beach, we tooled around in a surrey!

This was amazing!  We now have SIX serious peddlers!  Gone are the days of the Emperor and I peddling our legs off to try to haul all the kids, the surrey and ourselves.  Now we can ride while the kids peddle!

To all those I know who have a ton of little kids:  YOUR DAY WILL COME!

And it's going to be sweet!

More Vacation

Klenda Stylin'

Lest you think our vacation was all lolling about on beaches, it was not so!

We also went shopping with Grammy!

 We exercised! 

This was unexpected.  Next to a very nice playground was an exercise park for grown ups and teens.

Mxyl took full advantage!

 We rented a surrey!  This is like a big bike that will fit 8 people.  We've done this many times since the kids were little, and each year it gets more squished.

But we keep squishing in there, and now we have many more active pedallers.

 I got to fulfill my lifelong dream of riding in a surrey without pedalling! 

For a little while anyway.

And we lolled about inside and read!  I read the entire Glamourist Histories trilogy.  They are rather like Jane Austen with magic: very fun and relaxing.

Of course there's no Austen like actual Austen, so I ended up reading Mansfield Park when I got back.

It was a practically perfect vacation!

More Beach Fun

 So, what have we been doing besides getting wet and sandy (and pedaling a giant surrey until our legs fell off)?

I'm so glad you asked!

We've been lolling about relaxing a lot. 

Honestly, it's amazingly restful and more vacationy when the kids are old enough to amuse themselves.

I remember so many of those early "vacations" (when all the kids were little) felt much less restful than staying home. 

Now I'm so glad we persevered!


We've been reading, playing with legos, checking Facebook, watching movies together. 

Have you run into Earnest and Celestine?  We were quite charmed!


 And we visited The Sea Shell Shop where we added to our shell collection (an enormous sand dollar, several spiky shells, and an echidna).

Choclo found this silly shark hat.

The Emperor was nearly strangled by a really magnificent octopus (spoiler alert: they both survived).

 Plus, we got 5 kinds of fudge! Dark chocolate, orange creamsicle, mint chocolate, chocolate vanilla swirl, and ameretto chocolate.

 The oldest three Zoomlians decided to spend a chunk of their hard earned money going parasailing!

Alas, they got rained out, and had to try another day, but they did have a fun boat ride!

At the Beach, Interlude: Dawn of the Secret Monkey Clan

 Thus, it began: outcast and disgraced before all by the nefarious machinations of the Ape Clan, this remnant of a virtuous and noble house banded together to right injustices.

Seeking neither fame nor fortune, yet bound to fight oppression and evil in any form, and known only by a small (and sometimes invisible) monkey tattoo on the inside of their right wrist, they are...

The Secret Monkey Clan!

 It began thus: zipping along the boardwalk in a surrey, we spied many fun looking arcades.  When we returned to investigate, alas!  Gone were the Pac-man filled arcades of yesteryear. 

But, they still had skee ball, and some other fun stuff amidst the gambling games, so we gave each of the Zoomlians a buck to spend as they chose.

Playing games means winning tickets, and tickets mean prizes!  The older Zoomians pooled tickets to get several things they liked, and Zorg chose a packet of tattoos. 



He bypassed the dinosaur and rock n roll tattoos in favor of an animal pack showing a monkey. 

Except it wasn't a pack of animal tattoos with a monkey on top. 

It was a pack of 25 monkey tattoos!

What do you do with 25 monkey tattoos? 

We took the obvious answer: form a Secret Monkey Clan  of sworn brotherhood, and create a Secret Monkey Clan Dessert.

If you can keep a secret, here it is, if you are a clever enough monkey to figure it out:

Secret Dessert: Monkey Picks Two Peaches
Peel and slice 6 peaches into a pot.  
Add sugar to taste (sour peaches= 1/2 c. sugar, sweet peaches = 1/4 c.)
Add 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, ginger, cloves)
Simmer until peaches are soft, add 1 Tbsp vanilla.
Serve warm over vanilla ice cream!

Traveling

 As you can see, we have been off traveling.  This particular mode of transportation is known as a surrey.

We actually try one every other year that we go to the beach, but this was the first year where we had 6 people who could actually pedal and only 2 seat warmers.

 Wow!  What a change from 2 pedaling with 4 seat warmers!!!

The Emperor did an excellent job getting us to pedal up hill together by encouraging everyone to yell, "Oooooh!  Aaaah!  Oooooh!  Aaaah! Paiiiiiiiin!  Paiiiiin!"

That was more fun than it sounds, as well as providing endless amusement to passersby.

Mxyl commented that he would need a new pair of shoes after that ride.  I commented that I would need a new pair of legs... But, actually, it was the first time we've ever done this without my legs being sore afterwards!

That being said, I think we'll keep Blue Streak a little longer.