Family Retreat to Dillon Beach

Life around here has been nothing less than hectic.  Between school stuff and extra-curricular activities and the onslaught of fall family photo sessions... we're busy.  So when we looked at the calendar and saw that we had absolutely nothing scheduled this Sunday (the last day until Thanksgiving that this is the case) we decided it was appropriate to play hookey from church and spend some focused time together as a family.  We kicked around several ideas, and decided that a quick trip to the Dillon Beach sounded like the least stressful option.  And what could be more relaxing than THIS view...

 

The first thing the kids wanted to do was to go exploring the sand dunes.  Let me tell you... it is quite the workout to climb those things!

 

Then they explored the beach and found some interesting things including sand dollars, a huge jellyfish and some massive bull kelp. I launched into an interesting discussion of why kelp was designed to float for photosynthesis, which they didn't find very engaging.  They preferred to just whip each other with it.

The waves were quite large and a little scary, so we kept the kids in their life jackets while they were playing near the water.  It's a good thing, because Garrett spent a LOT of his time letting the waves chase him and at one point the waves won and he totally got overtaken and tossed around by a big wave.  That scared him pretty bad!

They finished of the day with some serious sand castle building and were completely covered in sand by the time we left.  Exhausted.  Happy. Relaxed.  An absolutely perfect family day!