California Trip Part 2: Beach Time

A couple days after a few of our cousin's left my Uncle John drove us up to Stinson Beach. We did much more that day, but the beach requires a post all of it's own. I took the most pictures there and the water was super freezing. Lets just say poor Nikolai! But mostly, Poor Gatlin!

We got to the beach and the babies seemed to really enjoy the sand. Let me say now that it took a while for Nikolai to poop out all the sand he ate, and it was SO difficult to clean up! Anyway... Once I put Nikolai on the blanket, he started grabbing the sand through the blanket. I think it is pretty cool to feel, apparently so does Nikolai!

It was so cute seeing the babies play with the sand!  

Sarah took Gatlin down to the water first. I had been waiting for Brandon to get his swimsuit on. I wanted help taking pictures of his first time in the ocean. Well, once Gatlin and Sarah came back, it was obvious that spending a lot of time in the water was not going to happen. Gatlin was not a very happy boy. He went in up to his waiste and the water was FREEZING! No joke, when I stood in the water I felt my feet were going to freeze off! But I wanted to still get some pictures!

We only put Nikolai in the water for a second, had the wave cover his feet then pulled him out. I felt bad for the poor little dude, but he wasn't in the water as long as I was because I was able to pick him up. No one was there to pick me up! Once his feet warmed back up he was fine. On the way there we had purchased a bucket and shovel, so Brandon ran up to the spot where everyone was and grabbed the bucket and shovel...

Before the water...

Once the water hit his feet...

Playing in the sand... It was so cute a guy with his daughter and a DSLR came and HAD to take pictures of him with the bucket, shovel, and towers! He apparently had tried to get his little girl to play in the sand without success. But he loved the setup so much he asked to take pictures! My response, "uh, Sure!"

No, I wasn't eating sand! :)

And then a wave came in... The tide was rising, Nikolai got his poor little but froze, and then we let him sit in it so we could take a few more pictures. A group walking on the beach felt so sad for him they stopped and tried to make him laugh. He was so mad! He wasn't having any of it! The wall we built worked, but Nikolai's little but was probably so cold, sitting in a cold diaper. And, he was tired...

We brought him back up from the water after using the freezing ocean water to rinse his hands, feet, but and even his mouth off (we wound up pouring water into his mouth to rinse out sand, he was sucking on sand covered fingeres trying to make himslef feel better!). I handed him to my mom covered him in a towel and he went right to sleep.

It was fun, a good day! and this was only the first part of the day!