JUST A DAY AT THE BEACH

We spent a lovely day at the beach today. Today's temperatures on the Isle of Palms were a wonderful 75 degrees and bright and sunny. We spent the morning walking up and down the beach hunting for seashells - - Maggie is very discerning in her picks, while Aleita simply wants to grab everything she sees - - with Aleita helping collect shells, the bucket is filled in no time flat. We had to stop and dump them out at one point and decide which ones to keep because there were so many. I actually found a complete and very pretty sand dollar. After we ate lunch, we got all the beach gear and headed back to the waterfront.

Aleita and Maggie played joyously for several hours, building more of what resembled war-ravaged structures than sand castles, but they enjoyed themselves. Chris and I sat in beach chairs and read, and occasionally helped in the sand building. Aleita's favorite thing to do was smash whatever was just built, so I learned to work hard to get my sand structures together quickly, rather than working towards perfection. After I would get five or six small sand domes in a line, Aleita would drive her plastic beach truck through my newly established community.

As it is April, the ocean is still fairly cold and only allowed you to get in about up to your waist before a wave would come up that would give you just enough of a splash of water "above the belt" that was a good reminder as to why you didn't want to venture out any further. The condo where we are staying has a heated outdoor pool, and it is also a bit cool, but at least more tolerable than the ocean.

Chris and I are both pale as can be, so we slathered on 50 SPF sunscreen on ourselves as well as the children. Around 2PM, everyone got it reapplied. The girls, with their darker skin, faired much better than we did. They have some cute tan lines showing where their bikinis were (yes, I managed to get Aleita into a bikini, though she did have a Power Rangers sunvisor on her head.) Apparently, I missed applying sunscreen on the area on both sides of me where my chest meets my arms. I also missed a small area of my cleavage. I definitely have some weird burn marks. Chris burned about one of the worst areas possible - - he says that he did apply sunscreen to the tops of his feet, but suspects that playing in the sand and the water probably washed it off and he probably forgot to reapply it. The tops of his feet are pink as can be. Tonight we made a run to Target and got Aloe Vera, Ibuprofen, and 70 SPF sunscreen for tomorrow. (I didn't even know they MADE 70 SPF sunscreen!)

Other than that, everything is wonderful - - I suspect the week will go by way too fast.