1st day on the beach

We never made it to the beach on Saturday.  It was windy and cold.  At some point in the day, each one of us walked down to the beach, but it was not a good day to hang out there.  Sunday, Malachy got to go to the beach for the first time since he was a baby.

Walks along the beach with daddy are the best

Before coming to Santa Cruz, we talked to him about the beach a lot.  He said he was going to make a big sand pit in the beach.  When I explained to him that the beach was the biggest sand pit he had ever seen and that there was the ocean, his eyes were wide with wonder and excitement.  From the moment we arrived here, he has been asking to go to the beach.

Along for the ride

Jake and Ellen took the kids down while I hung out with the napping babies, so I did not get to see Mal's initial reaction to the ocean and the sand.  By the time I got down to meet them, it was clear he had been playing hard. They had dug a huge hole in the ground (referred to in years past as the man cave).  Mal was enjoying himself jumping / throwing himself into the pit over and over again.  I was tired looking at him.  Clearly he was out of gas too because he spent the rest of the afternoon letting his cousin Jacob drag him around a course he had built in the sand on the boogie board.

Letting Jacob do all the work

He was so, so tired, but it was that good, "I have been having a wonderful time" kind of tired.  Exactly as it should be on vacation.