Beach Day!

Today we went on our first beach excursion and it was a great way for our family to spend Valentine's Day because we love the beach! Our friends, The Fieldings, showed us the ropes and took us to a beach called "Pria de Palmerenias" which is about 2 hours south of here. The drive to get to the beach was quite an adventure in it of itself! It would have taken a lot longer to get there, but our driver knew of a "shortcut"- he just went off-roading through a big field and then drove along the side the road, so as to avoid sitting in a traffic jam! (That would be like somebody in the U.S. just driving down the median when traffic got backed up.) For the majority of the ride we were driving parallel to the water. Most of the scenery throughout the two hour drive was of the beautiful coastline, with patches of run down, graffiti “houses” or stick shelters scattered along the side of the road and throughout the hills between the road and the water. We were on a hilly, paved road for most of the trip, but at some point we needed to get from the paved road to the water. So at some random big tree (there are no steet signs, at all) the driver turned onto a dirt road. It was actually a road this time, but it was so rugged and the pot holes were atrotious. We were bouncing around like crazy (which the boys didn't even comment on because they were busy playing their handheld games!). We were only on the rugged road for about 15 minutes (that the equivalent of approximately 200 pot holes) and then "boop!" the driver just drove right up onto the sand and parked and we were at the beach! We were the only people on that beach all day! As far as you could look, all you could see is sand and water. It was amazing. The kids had so much fun. And it was double fun because the family we went with has 3 kids too- each of their kids being a year older than each of our kids. So they each had a buddy for the day and they were off and running with their friends from he moment we hit the sand. Zach and his buddy, Braeden, spent a lot of time boogie boarding and looking for seashells (they found some really cool ones). Colby and his friend, Ty, spent most of their time making up games like "run from the waves before they get you", "dig, dig, dig" and "let's bury each other"! Nolan and his friend, Ashlyn, enjoyed playing in the blow up pool we bought and eating suckers! Will and I both went boogie boarding and it was so much fun. And of course it was fun just getting away from city life, being out in the middle of nowhere and hanging out with new friends. We all can't wait to go back...

the view from the kilo window

The boys looking for seashells and exploring the secluded beach

Ty and Colby "dig, dig, digging" Zach and Braeden just chilling

Me and Nolan taking a break from the sun to enjoy a sucker