The Crowley Kids at the Beach

Friday we decided to head to the beach and the plan was for mom to join up with us after work. Because we wanted to have mom with us we didn’t leave for the beach until the afternoon so we’d still be there when she got off work. The weather was amazing and the surf was up and I had several long and amazing runs on the boogie board.

There were two things that kind of put a damper on the day. The first one was a rather big one. I left my grand daughter to drown. Ya, I know, let me explain.

I didn’t put my contacts in and my hearing aids are not water proof so when Ella and I went out into the waves I was both deaf and blind. There was a rip current but I wasn’t worried about it because we never went over Ella’s head so we always had our feet on the ground.

After getting exhausted from boarding I told Ella that I was heading in. When she wasn’t right behind me I just assumed that she was loving splashing in the waves but in fact she was doing her best trying to keep up with me. She was also yelling at me to help her. Of course I couldn’t see or hear any of it so I blissfully left my precious grand daughter to drown.

When I got back to Alycia she was carefully watching Ella trying to figure out if she was playing or struggling. She was actually making progress towards the shore but the huge surf would knock her down and the whole time she was fighting the current. While the current was only up to my waist it was up to her waist for much of the time.

Alycia finally decided that Ella was struggling and we both headed out to rescue her. So, while Ella was never in real danger, she thought she was drowning and while she never actually panicked, she was terrified. About the time we headed towards Ella, a life guard drove by in this truck and he knew right away that Ella was struggling. He stopped and headed out towards her, but when he saw Alycia starting to run he let her go first. I guess when Ella saw the life guard she was yelling for help.

The brave little girl never complained, she never cried and (thankfully) she never accused me of leaving her to drown, even though I was very guilty of that. She was however very subdued after that and just sat in the beach chair next to Alycia the rest of the time.

The other downer was that the kids all tired out before mom could join us so poor grandma missed out on another fun day with the grandkids.

Mom was good about it and reminded us that she had icecream for every one so we all headed home and cleaned up.

For dinner we decided to have a weiner roast but as soon as we all headed into the back yard to light up the fire the kids decided that they wanted to head down into the canyon. The only problem with that was that I have dumped a lot of dirt into that canyon and the slope has become steep and the loose dirt is quite slippery. I didn’t think it was safe to send them down alone and I was anxious to head down there myself so I tied them all to a rope and had them rapel down. They were pretty scared doing it and it tool a lot of encouragement to get them down.The one exception was Ella, She threw the rope over her shoulders and headed down the hill like an old pro.

The brush was pretty thick so they couldn’t go far from the yard but they played around until it got dark and then they all came back up. Most of them had scratches all over them but no one complained. They acted as if they were badges of honor and just had us put a bandaid on their wounds and wore them proudly. I guess they figured that is what comes with the job of being an explorer.

I had more help than I could handle building the fire so it didn’take long before we were eating some delicious hot dogs followed by some delicous smores. It was a very fun evening.

At some point in the evening the kids were checking out the stars. There weren’t many visible. When they pointed at one star that seems to be a bit reddish to me and at the right elevation I told them I figured it must be Mars. I then remembered that I had the star charts on my phone so I whipped out Martha and she told me that it was actually Sirius. Who knew?

Mars had set long ago but Jupiter was right above us. They were quite fascinated and of course I’m always fascinated by the stars.

We then washed sticky marshmallows off everyones hands and Alycia sent them off to bed. Of course it is never that simple. Somewhere along the road all the grandkids have figured out that they can’t go to sleep until Grandma sings them a song (usually skimery dink) and I sing them One Tin Soldier.

I’m not sure if I have told that story yet. I will share the history of “One Tin Soldier” in a later post.