My Once Upon a Time...: Back to the beach

October 11, 2020

Back to the beach

Back in July, we took another beach trip to Grandma's house in Long Beach.

Here is the thing about Fox. He loves to stay home and he loves to be indoors. Quarantine never bothered him one bit and in a lot of ways he is just like me. So even though we were in Long Beach with the beach right out the door and the weather couldn't have been more perfect, he did not want to go outside. Ever. He wanted to stay inside and play legos. Although when I asked him if he liked being at the beach house, he said he loved it, he just didn't like being outside because it was too bright. So the first day we went outside at dusk and he loved it.

A rare moment of both of my boys hugging me at the same time...soaking it all in!

I tried to take Fox on little one on one outings, because I always feel that Finn needs so much of my attention that Fox kind of falls behind, so whenever I'm able to spend some time with just my big kid, I jump on it.

He found this sand hill on the beach and wanted to play there for over an hour. We ran up and down, he made up silly competitions for us and we just had a great time together.

This sums up how my boys feel about being outside. Fox DID NOT want to go on a walk and was very upset that I made him, but I know my kid, and once we found these cool rocks to play on, he had a blast and didn't want to go home.

It was a chilly night and it felt so weird, but incredibly amazing at the same time, to be able to wear jackets in July.

One day I had the idea to do a treasure hunt for Fox, so I drew a treasure map and hid it in Grandma's living room. Finn and I took a little nap and when we got up, I told Fox that I had this weird dream about a hidden treasure map in Grandma's living room, so we decided to see if there was anything there. He couldn't believe it once he found it and kept saying "Dreams DO come true!" He was so excited.

We followed the map which coincidentally lead us to the same big sand hill that we had played on the day before and started digging when we saw some big branches that were shaped like an "X".

Scoping out their treasure, which consisted of candy, money and little jewels.

Mr. Serious! I bought this stuffed animal before I was even pregnant with Fox and before I knew I would ever have a son named Fox, and now little brother loves him just as much as big brother did.

I really wanted to take Fox paddle boarding, because he had never done it before. It ended up being an epic fail, because he refused to sit down on it, so it wasn't a surprise that we both fell off after five minutes, but not only that, the paddle also smacked him in the head during our fall and while he was totally fine, he did not want to go any further.

We built a sand castle instead, but Fox kept asking to go home, so this beach trip was short lived.

Finn loves watching all of the trucks at work.

Fox told me this was his favorite part of our vacation, playing in the waves with me. I don't like being in the ocean and the water was freezing, but I knew I had to do it for him and he was so excited when I agreed. We ended up doing this on three different days and it was so worth it, because I could tell that it meant a lot to him.

Sweet brothers.

I don't know what it is about being at the beach, but I was so tired the entire time we were there. Luckily this little dude agreed to take much needed naps with me every day.

Playground time...the first time since February!

This must have been one of my favorite nights there. The weather was perfect and it felt so good to be able to be on a playground again and play outside. It has been a long summer in Phoenix!

One night we visited the board walk to get some ice cream.

2 year old vs. 6 year old: When you’re too cool for the ride, but participating seems better than sitting out.

Finn and I took a little spin on the bike with him sitting in the dog trailer...ha! No worries, he was perfectly safe and sitting down while we were riding very slowly.