Our Beach Experience (In a Nutshell)

This is Mr. Tickle. He's not much of a water person, so the beach doesn't exactly excite him too much. To him, the beach is "too messy". He learned last year that if he stays away from the water, he can play in the sand without it sticking to him. So that's his beach activity of choice. Play in the sand and avoid the water at all cost.

He's usually on his own since Little Miss Chatterbox LOVES the water and wonders why anyone would want to spend their time doing anything other than be in the water. Mr. Funny was scared of the ocean once upon a time, but he's older now (and I think he got tired of his older sister making fun of him) and he really enjoys the water too. This doesn't bother Tickle too much because he's quite the loner.

But this year, he had a buddy.

Mr. Tickle and Little Miss Sunshine spent a great amount of time playing in the sand together. This didn't surprise me because Sunshine has become quite the little shadow of Tickle. This bothers him sometimes. But for the most part, he loves his "little princess" as he calls her. They got along great on our little beach trip. I think Tickle enjoyed having a sand buddy to play with this year.
I was happy to have help keeping Sunshine busy because she really, really would have preferred to be in the ocean. If she stopped what she was doing, she would remember that the ocean was just a few feet away from her, and she was off as fast as she could go, towards the water!

Here's Mr. Tickle, trying to bring her back.
Sometimes she'd take the bait. Sometimes, she wouldn't. And if she caught sight of daddy, fuh-get about it.Daddy's girl? For sure.

Every once in awhile, I'd grant her wish and we'd all go down by the water. Mike tried to get Mr. Tickle to join us.
But he just ran away and pouted....
very dramatically. It made me laugh, seeing him sitting in the only shaded spot around, with his head hanging as low as he could get it. This picture still makes me laugh. :)So I became his new sand buddy while Mike took over Little Miss Sunshine duty. A win-win situation for both kids. Tickle practiced making F's in the sand and Sunshine laughed and danced every time the water rushed over her feet.Then Tickle and I made sand castles together. This attracted the attention of Chatterbox and Mr. Funny. Eventually sand castle building even pulled Sunshine away from her daddy! So we all worked together. But that will have to wait for another post. :)