2021 Spring Break: second half

 Since Brandon is taking this semester off of school, I had hoped that maybe he could join us for spring break. With that hope in mind, I booked a house that was big enough for him to join us. With him working a new job, he wasn't able to take the time off to come out. Since we had an extra room, I invited Marianne to join us for a couple of days. And she did! Patrick was working out of town for a couple of months, so it was just Marianne and Eden. We loved having them join us.

The three of us headed to the beach as soon as they got here.

We flew a kite.

Took Eden's first jumping pic. :)

And played in the sand.

I've never seen this happen before, but while we 

were hanging out on the beach, a big wave came

and somehow stranded hundreds of little fish on the shore.

We saved as many as we could.

And the seagulls had a feast with the rest...

Fun, fun, fun.

The girls had fun playing with Eden.

It's not often that they get to hang out with three year olds.

The next morning, Andrew and the girls watched Eden 

so that Marianne and I could go for a long walk on the beach.

Even though we talk every week, we loved having face-to-face time.

AND we saw more dead wildlife than I've ever seen on the beach.

Crab head

Most of a crab

A PUFFER FISH!

What the heck?

We walked down to the Surf City Pier,

which made for a fun photo spot.

Headless shrimp

Mermaid's purse (skate egg case?)

And most of a horseshoe crab!

Wow.

Eden and Andrew were waiting for us when we got home. :)

We found creative ways to play Azul with Eden.

The weather got COLD on Thursday, so instead of

going to the beach, we went mini golfing.

It was fun!

Andrew won by two strokes and Marianne and I TIED for

second place behind him.

After that, we found a fun playground.

Eden especially loved the spinning equipment.

Those are the types of things that make both moms sick.

We did a little shopping after that.

AND found our 100th geocache! Yippee!!

We got dinner at Surf Dogs.

It was tasty, but a little pricey.

After dinner, Marianne, Caroline, Eden, and I headed

back to the beach for one last walk.

Care Bear flew her kite all the way to the end of the string.

There was a beautiful sunset.

When you bury half of C's legs, she's a lot closer to E's height. :)

More fun shells.

Thursday night was also game night.

The girls like playing games that they can beat us at:

Anomia and Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza

Marianne was not a fan of either of those. Ha!

Then the adults stayed up late playing Pandemic and Winslow-opoly.

It was a fun little jaunt down memory lane, with properties like

La Posada Hotel and Standing on a Corner Park.

Then Andrew went to bed and Marianne and I stayed up talking until FOUR A M.

Are you kidding me?

I don't think I've stayed up that late since college.

It was kind of ridiculous.

So many shared stories when you've been friends for 30+ years.

On Friday, it was time to check out of our paradise.

We did a little more shopping.

We had to stop by the store with the gator-mouth entrance!

Then we toured the Sea Turtle Hospital.

It was pretty cool.

They take in turtles that are sick or injured from

all up and down the coast and rehabilitate them.

Hooray for a fun spring break!

Now we just have to get through one more

quarter of school and hopefully this darn

pandemic will be over and life will be back to

some sort of normal.