tears only shed once

Just a little update on our summer fun.  

Coach took a few days off in mid July.  We were tossing around the idea of going to the beach.  Decided we would go on Thursday while the 3 oldest caddied.  They probably wouldn’t want to be bothered going to the beach.  Kid stuff.  Wednesday was going to be devoted to getting things done with maybe some early morning golf thrown in.  

Nothing like a day at the beach
in downtown Chicago.  Bucket hat:  a must!

Turned out the 3 oldest WANTED to go to the beach.  Who knew?  Certainly not us, because
1.  we are never in the same place at the same time.  Those teenage boys keep weird hours.  Toss a caddy schedule on top of that and forget about it.

2.  teenagers are unpredictable.  Once  you think you know what they like, they get all, 'What?  Why wouldn't we want to go to the beach?'

3.  They also struggle to communicate with Coach and I because we are not on snap-chat.

On Wednesday late morning, we reversed our days.  Switched gears.  Opted to do the beach that day.  Coach was on the golf course with a few kids.  I had some kid at an ortho or the dermatologist or some other regular occurrence.  The moment I was home I announced something along the lines of ‘stations everyone’.  

I started directing people to pack towels, load outdoor games in the car, dig out the big picnic blanket.  Of course my focus was food.  No escaping it.  Coach bopped in from doing some par 3 golf with Tank and Lad.  Ed had some basketball weight lifting or something.  

Despite my incredibly clean and well organized garage, we are missing the Frisbee that goes with our can jam game.  Coach announced that he would run to Target to buy a Frisbee.  

‘Freeze’, I hollered.  ‘There is no Target trip unless I have assessed what else we need.’ Lunchmeat.  That was what I came up with.  Impossible to keep it in the house.  Grab some packages of lunchmeat.  I usually get it at the deli, but pre-packaged stuff would work fine.

Our impromptu beach day was a success.  The weather was great.  The kids played a ton of games together, and we only looked partially ridiculous in our bucket hats.  Um, I don't wear a bucket hat, therefore I can make fun of them. 

All 6 kids played, so we knew that wouldn't
 last long.  I don't know how to play, and
 by the sound of the scoldings that were launched
at one another, neither do some of the kids.  But
 it looks cool, right?  The object is to bounce
 the little green ball off of the little net. 
I'm guessing there is more to it than that. 

The gang tossed a Frisbee in the water, dug a hole in the sand, built a sandcastle, played volleyball (more on that and the big laugh we had in my next post), snacked, played can jam, and snacked some more.

There was a spike ball tournament.  Tank hollered: ‘Another Mini moment!’ every time Mini missed the ball.  That game ended a little prematurely when Mini finally broke down and cried.  Stupid brothers.