Another beach weekend

For the past six years, I have spent this late August weekend alternately running and vanning to the beach, over the course of 30 hours.  This year, without the Hood to Coast to boss us around, we decided to go to the beach like sane people, in a car.

I did a volunteer shift for a friend's HtC team on Friday night.  And even though we ran a mad awesome relay only a few weeks ago, I was jealous once I saw all the runners out there.  I felt like, this is MY party, and I should be running too.  But volunteering was a good way to feel involved, and at 10pm I went home to take a shower and sleep in my bed, and then I started to feel glad that I skipped the whole running-not-sleeping thing after all.

So on Saturday, we took our own beach trip, for Amber's birthday.  Instead of smushed bananas, warm pb&j, and water, we had delicious treats in the form of fresh sandwiches and fruit and fancy cheese.  Most of these were covered in sand by the time we started eating them.  Sandy watermelon tastes better than you might expect. 

En route to the sand, Scar and Lucy looked for bear caves.  Lucy is an expert at this.  Scarlett was unsure at first, but she saw how excited Lucy was and joined in.  Two little girls searching for bears- and later, Scarlett looked for gnomes and their homes- is really cute.

Oscar hung out with Charlie, and with his grandpa, while the girls ran around and Scarlett hid in a big sand hole that Charlie dug.  Shaggy and a friend were paddle boarding.  Lucy's cousin and some other little friends came along, then there was more running around on the sand and splashing and some peeing in the ocean.

We went to look in the tide pools, and for more bear caves.  Then Scarlett and I played a chasing game of our own on the beach.  So in the end, I did some beach running after all.  Happy birthday Amber!  Enjoy your prime!