Brad had Fall break thursday and friday and we had been talking for a while about me taking time off work so we could finally actually all go to the beach. This was mentioned to Tacy, who has never been to a beach or seen the ocean. After I explained to her what a beach was (lots of water and sand) she was obsessed with the idea to the point that while singing her to sleep she would quietly whisper "beach" occasionally or wake up saying "beach" randomly.
Friday we finally went to the beach. It was the perfect day! It was warm, but not hot. The water felt great (anything is better than the freezing pacific). The only downside was the car ride (like 2.5 hours to get to the beach we went too, which is long for a toddler). But once we crested that last light hill to get to the beach and Tacy saw all the sand and water, her eyes were wide and she said something like "woah". It was so cute. She was pretty excited. The poor kid has never seen that much water in all her life and sand is only a recent discovery since moving here to NC.
I personally am afraid of waves (well that's mostly because I'm afraid of drowning and waves are something I cannot control that are strong and create strong currents, riptides, etc which lead to drowning). I was curious to see how Tacy would react to waves. Needless to say, the child is fearless (unless you are talking about hermit crabs because she did not like seeing those). But Tacy ran to the waves. We had to do a nice talk about always holding a parents hand when by water - that talk did not really sit in her brain at all because she would run to the water any chance she got. But she had so much fun kicking her legs in the water and would laugh anytime the water/waves would get to her. Her first time to the water i was actually using my camera to take pictures and Tacy managed to get caught in a wave (just a little one) and rolled around a little in the water. She looked startled by the experience and she was wet and sandy all over. But she never cried and after trying to clean her up a little she was ready for the water again. Needless to say, I didn't bring my camera to the water again (Brad was there for that experience so it wasn't just me watching her). That was also when I got protective any time we were by the water while Tacy kept fighting to pull us both closer to the waves/farther into the water. Brad would run up close to the waves then chase the waves to Tacy. She loved this game.
We took lots of sand breaks. Brad and Tacy started to make sand castles, which quickly evolved into Brad trying to build faster than Tacy destroyed. Our little bucket and shovel broke really fast, luckily I had also brought some plastic BYU cups as back up so these became the sand castle builders. When Tacy wasn't destroying what Brad made, she was trying to copy him by filling a cup up with sand and flipping it over to make a sand castle. She never filled the cups all the way up so she usually ended up with a tiny little mound of sand, but she was always so proud of herself.
Tacy and I went looking for some sea shells. She had fun putting them in our cracked bucket. She also loved picking up whole handfuls of sand and throwing them, usually at the waves which she found hilarious. She was pretty covered with sand by the time we left.
Tacy was shivering after a few times down to the water and back to play in the sand. The wind is pretty strong so even though it was warm, it can be chilly when you are wet. Now I remember so much why I loved when I dad would dig big holes at the beach at Topsail Island. He would dig them big enough for me to stand in and they were nice and warm (they blocked the wind). I kept asking Tacy if she wanted to be wrapped in her towel but she would say no. Well Brad had dug a good little hole in the sand from collecting sand in cups to make sand castles. Tacy sat down with her legs in this hole and was just rubbing her legs back and forth. She again refused her towel. So Brad asked her if she would let him burry her legs. She was fine with this and thought it was pretty funny. After she got out we burried Brad's feet.
While eating snacks, seagulls came to visit. They weren't aggressive, there were just a lot in close proximity. Well, Tacy loves birds so she would run after them trying to get close. Needless to say she was good at clearing the birds. Brad then taught her to tease the seagulls by throwing little shells in the air so the birds thought it was food and would fly after them. They both found this funny.
The beach had some showers so I tried rinsing Tacy off here and managed to at least desand her a little. Then we drove down to one of the NC aquariums and looked at fish, alligators, turtles, etc for a little while until Tacy was too tired to listen at all anymore so we left and drove home. Tacy slept for a little over an hour, not great. I'm glad we were able to go to the beach. Brad was happy with how warm the water was. None of us went swimming because we had Tacy and I don't swim in waves. Brad probably would have liked to.
We are just loving this nice October weather. It is warm still. Some days are nice and cool like Fall but some days are in the 70s and Brad is still wearing shorts. When I see pictures of all our friends in Utah bundled up I just laugh and am so glad to have a legit Fall again. Tacy and I have worn pants with the cooler weather, plus it feels so weird dressing up in shorts in October. We are still waiting for the leaves to change, but i know it will happen.
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