Now That Summer Is Almost Gone

We finally got ourselves out on the water today! Not on the boat, but at least we were in the water. We were secretly hoping to run into anyone we know at the reservoir today, in hopes that we could jump on their boat. But alas, the only person we saw that we know doesn't have a boat. She does, however, play on our soccer team from time to time and since Fall Soccer is starting soon, it was good to see her and get her on our team before anyone else gets her.

We had a lot of fun playing in the water. Drew and Owen were "so excited," as they told us over and over on the way to American Falls, to go to the beach. On our way there we stopped at the sporting goods store to get a floatie and some water shoes for me (I don't know when I became such a wimp--maybe it's repercussions from last year's excursion--but I can't stand going in the water with bare feet these days), then off to the beach we went.

Talking it up turned out to be a lot more fun than the actual beach itself--at least for the first little while. Drew and Owen were all kinds of excited to get down to the water, but the second it touched their toes, they were crying and running away. Samantha, normally quite fond of water, screamed and tucked her little feet up as high as she could when I tried to get her to stand in the water. I was just glad the water wasn't as filthy as it was last year and with my new water shoes I had no qualms about wading around (didn't really get into it though because I actually styled my hair today, not thinking we were going to go swimming, and I didn't want to get it wet--apparently I'm a prissy wimp, not just a wimp).

We blew up the floatie we purchased, thinking the boys would like to ride it. With some reservation they waded out in the ankle-deep water and let us load them onto it but as I went to grab my camera the floatie tipped over, causing much screaming on Drew and Owen's part and much laughter on mine and David's part. I hopped on the floatie and convinced Owen to join me, but he only sat on it for a few seconds before begging to be let off. We never did convince Drew to get back on it.

Left: Owen crying after the floatie tipped over. Right: Drew finally relaxing and splashing around with David

Above: Owen and me on the floatie. Nice tan line I have, eh? And if you look closely at my leg

you can see the massive bruise I still have from crashing on my bike the other day.

The boys played around on the shore for a while, throwing sand and rocks into the water. I sat with Samantha who preferred to not sit on the beach blanket we brought, but rather wanted to crawl around in the sand and put tiny rocks and large handfuls of sand into her mouth.

Above: Samantha with a sunflower seed shell in her mouth; she just dug it out of the sand and popped it in her mouth!

We hadn't been at the beach long when the weather started to turn a bit. We heard thunder and looked up to see that the clouds were suddenly really dark. We decided to sit on the sand and build sandcastles while we waited to see what the weather would do. After a few minutes, the clouds floated right past us, letting the sun shine (quite forcefully) upon us once more.

Above: Lovely Fluffy clouds, meet Menacing Dark clouds.

By this point the boys were getting more and more brave and consented to wading out into the water and splashing around in it. Samantha finally stopped eating sand long enough to take a bottle and fall asleep, so David and I were able to have a lot of fun with the boys in the water. Turned out to be a great day.

Above: The majority of today's fun was had throwing rocks into the water.