Day at the Beach

Today we took Ryan to Robert Moses Beach - not only was it his first time to Robert Moses, but it was his first trip to the beach. Since Dylan was born, Jay and I haven't spent much time with just Ryan and since Dylan is too young to go to the beach, we thought it would be fun. Omi and Poppy planned to meet us there and our goal was to head out early, but Ryan chose today as the first day in his life that he wanted to sleep in. He woke up at 5:30, went to the potty, and said he wanted to go back to sleep!!! That has NEVER happened before and when he was still sleeping at 8 am, we thought that maybe he was not feeling well and we should cancel beach day. When he finally woke up at 8:30, he was completely fine and said he was just tired. Elizabeth came to watch Dylan and we headed out with our beach bag, cooler, toys etc - we had so much stuff, you would have thought we were moving! Ryan did not stop talking all the way there and was disappointed when we told him we were going to the beach, not the movies. When we described the beach and told him we had all of his sand toys, he got really excited and said he would rather go there. Good thing since he didn't have a choice. For the rest of the ride, he asked every 3 seconds "Where the beach? Where the beach?" and when we finally got there and he saw it, he took off running as fast as he could all the way to the water - the FREEZING cold water.

The weather forecast called for clouds in the morning and mostly sunny skies in the afternoon although the sun really only came out as we were packing up the car (despite very little sun, Jay got a bit sunburned). As luck would have it, it was also one of the windiest days so far this summer and Ryan and I wore sweatshirts most of the time we were there. I think that Jay was the only one that wasn't bundled up, but that is only because he didn't have anything long-sleeved in the car.

We had a great time collecting seashells, building sand castles and burying each other in the sand and I was thankful that Ryan was happy to play on the shore instead of wanting to go in the water.

It did not take long though before Ryan decided he wanted to "feel" the water and as soon as he felt it and even though he said the water was so cold, he said he wanted to go swimming.

Lucky for me, Jay was willing to go in and I got to stay nice and dry under a stack of towels. After a few minutes, it was obvious Ryan was really cold and although I know he didn't want to come out of the water, he decided being warm would be better and cuddled up on my lap under the towels and had his lunch. After lunch, Jay showed Ryan how to use his Thomas kite that he got from the Easter Bunny. Ryan was less interested in the kite though than he was in holding the string. I am still amazed we left the beach with the kite in one piece.

The craziest thing that happened today had nothing to do with Ryan though. There were a lot of seagulls on the beach and I guess they must be fed by beach goers often because as soon as they hear a chip bag open, they come flying over. We were all sitting eating lunch and all of a sudden, one of the seagulls swooped down and snatched my whole sandwich right out of my hand. At first, I didn't realize what happened but I looked up and saw the bird fly away with all of the bread and looked down and saw a pile of meat. After that, whenever Ryan wanted a snack, I made him eat it under the blanket.

As soon as we got in the car, we asked Ryan if he had fun and he said "yes, beach SOOOO fun" and then he closed his eyes and was asleep before we even got out of the parking lot!! Guess the sun and surf took a lot out of him. Hopefully next time we go to the beach, we will have warmer weather but just as much fun as we did today.