Beach bliss...

We woke to ominously cloudy skies. I checked my Weather Channel app because I was sure it had said that the day would be sunny and perfect. And yes, it was predicting that the clouds would clear and sunny skies would follow. Honestly, I was a little worried because we only had a couple days left in Nelson and everyone was super excited about going to the beach. We spent the morning bumming around the house and wouldn't you know it - the skies began to clear and soon the temperature was climbing. With our beach day coming together we started to change into swimwear and gather up everything we would need to take along. After ridiculous amounts of sunscreen were applied we packed the cars and headed into town. We found a place to park and hiked over a small dune where we were greeted by a vast expanse of blue water and sky.

Our toes happily found themselves in sand as fine as powdered sugar. We scoped out a place to set up camp and off loaded our bags and towels. Timmy, Landy and I then set off to find a hardware store. We wanted to buy some buckets, scoops and beach toys for Josephine. The boys were eager to build an epic sandcastle so we had to find these essential supplies. Buckets were easy enough but the scoops proved harder to find. I stumbled upon the perfect thing in the kitchen section where I found scoops so big you'd never be able to use them in a kitchen situation. But they suited our purposes and soon we were off. We stopped at a gas station and loaded up drinks for everyone and were soon parked back at the beach. Lunging our purchases we found the rest of the troop. Setting to work immediately Timmy, Landy and I set to work filling buckets (10 L) with wet sand that would comprise the first level of the sand castle. The scoops worked perfectly and we soon had a square of bucket shaped sand clumps. At this point the tide was lapping right at the edge of our castle. We continued to filling buckets as fast as we could and soon carved out a big pit a few yards from the castle.

From here Timmy suggested we start to fortify the corners with extra sand so we could make them into towers (multiple levels). At this point I left the boys to collect shells with Josephine as the tide was receding a little bit each time around. After we had amassed a huge pile of shells Josephine, Paul and I decided to go out in the water. The water was surprisingly warm and the waves weren't all that strong. Even so I picked up Josephine so she would experience the waves without being overwhelmed by them. The three of us bobbed and floated until Josephine's teeth started chattering. At that point we started to make our way back to the beach and Grandma Linda met us with warm towels. She asked Josephine if she felt cold to which Josephine replied, through chattering teeth, "no!". :)

By this time the guys had added ascending levels to the castle and made serious progress. But they told us that they ran into structural problems that they repeatedly tried to fix. Alas, they had abandoned the project but it had been a fun one that took most of the day to build. :)

Sandy, salty and tired we decided to pack it in for the day. We loaded up the cars and headed back to the house. Then Paul, Timmy and I headed into town to get a few groceries for that night's dinner. When we arrived home we set to work grilling burgers on the BBQ. We feasted outside on our picnic table and watched as the sky turned into a spectacular sunset. It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: it was a great day!