Any one who knows me very well knows that I love the ocean! It’s other worldly, mysterious, always changing, serene yet turbulent. It’s vastness carries with it the knowledge that there is more to this world than we can possibly know.  I would love to live on the beach some day! It’s a dream of mine. However, I currently settle for vacations to the beach. With the turbulent state of the world right now, we needed a little beach serenity! We were blessed with beautiful weather overall, and a week of great memories.

This was the day we arrived. I took pictures of the kids on the balcony of our condo. The kids did REALLY well on the drive to the beach! They played kindle games, ate snacks, took naps, and watched movies. We stopped mid-way and grabbed some lunch. We did our best to maintain social distancing, and took our lunch to this great park we found. The kids were able to eat and then run and play, wearing off some energy, before returning to the car for the remainder of the trip. We did a similar thing on the way back home too.

Some very good friends of ours, Chris and Laura, spent the week at the beach with us. We’re still great friends after this past week!😜  It was great to have them along on this trip with us! We had a great time!

I’m going to overload you with pictures on this post. I can’t help it! I love beach pictures! I love the kids first reaction to going down to the beach! They are all different! Samuel LOVES the water, and loved splashing in the ocean, swimming in the pool, and digging in the sand. After the first day Samuel was a little too brave, and would get knocked over by the ocean waves, but he took it like a champ and didn’t cry at all. I love the picture of Andrew and Samuel from behind. 💕 Emma LOVES the sand, and played in the sand more than the others. She was, however, brave about getting into the water this time. She played in the ocean, and got down into the pool! She was proud of herself for doing this. 🙂 David has overcome a lot of his fears about the water too! If you remember from last summer, we put him in swimming lessons because he was afraid of even washing his hair in the bathtub!! No joke! Well it paid off! This time he was jumping and playing in the ocean! He even learned to swim underwater in the pool this past week! Yes, underwater!!

Truth be told, the kids loved the pool probably more than the beach. Every time we would walk past it to go to the beach, they would want to get into the pool first. I would force them to keep walking with the promise that we would return to the pool after the beach. 🙂 They had so much fun!

We had a few beach activities up our sleeves for this trip. David wanted to bring his Godzilla. Apparently in every Godzilla movie he comes up out of the ocean. So we took some pictures of Godzilla on the beach. 😂 Emma wanted to bring her Paw Patrol “Ryder” figure toy.  However, he didn’t fare well on the beach. She was in mid play when she comes up crying because she has lost Ryder. Ryder was lost at sea! We had to comfort her for quite a while, and Andrew immediately ordered a new Ryder from Amazon with the promise that he would be waiting for her when she got home! We also made a volcano! We made a big sand mountain, stuck a little cup in the top of it. Poured in baking soda and vinegar to cause the eruption. It was pretty cool!

We buried the kids in the sand, or David and Emma anyway. Samuel did not take well to having sand put on him. Emma wanted to be a mermaid. 🙂

The kids and I love scouring the beach to see what we can find. We found LOTS of sea shells. One day David found a shrimp, and what we think is a baby lobster. We also went crab hunting a couple nights. We caught several smaller crabs, and a couple larger ones that would not stay in our bucket!

 

Here are a few more pictures! 🙂 I love baby toes in the sand!

When we arrived home I found that my garden has grown exponentially over the week! I found this big cucumber and banana pepper ready to pick, with several more on the way. My tomatoes are also looking great, and I can’t wait for them to change color!

I have been trying to cook recipes that use our fresh garden ingredients! I have a couple to share with you! This is super easy! It’s just pasta tossed in a basil pesto sauce. I harvested several stalks of basil from our garden, and blended it with two cloves of garlic, 1/3 cup of olive oil, 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper. A lot of pesto recipes call for pine nuts, but I couldn’t find any at our store. Just toss with the cooked and drained pasta!

This dish is grilled salmon, grilled vegetables, and rice! I love grilling in the summer! The salmon is seasoned with salt and pepper and then grilled. I made a sauce to go over it after it finished grilling. Here is the sauce recipe! Four tablespoons of butter, 1/2 cup of lime juice, 1/4 cup of honey, two garlic cloves minced, and about two tablespoons of chopped cilantro (add the cilantro at the end after the butter and everything is melted together).  Pour it over the fish when it’s done grilling! I also made the vegetable medley to cook over the grill in a foil pouch. It includes a couple zucchini, half a red onion, a banana pepper, salt and pepper. Toss it all together with a little olive oil, and put it in the foil pouch. Grill until zucchini are fork tender.

 

Hope y’all are staying safe and well!

Love,

PK