Beach Babes

Today we decided on a whim to go to the beach. The kids had a ball!
Maria is a water baby and wants to spend the whole time swimming. She loves duck diving and splashing around. She also likes finding beach treasures in the water or on the sand. Today she found a few different types of seaweed, a star fish, some crabs, and some ooh-ie goo-ie long strings of jelly fish. There were only two other kids anywhere in sight, and of course with in the hour Maria had befriended them and was initiating crab hunting, pier exploring, and lying together in the rock pools. Sammy tagged along and was soon in the thick of it all with them. They are such social butterflies!!
Sam likes to roll around in the water nearer the shallows and commando crawl in the warm pools. We got him a little swimming vest, which has really helped his confidence and also takes the pressure off him going too deep for his ability. He's really good and doesn't go far, but he still is not happy putting his head under and the vest helps him to bob around. He really likes it - it's orange. He also likes finding treasures, although his treasure of choice today was a long bit of driftwood that he spent ages throwing it into the water and retrieving with great commentry to go along with it.
Bekah today was the surprise bundle! On the previous occasions when we have gone to the beach she has really enjoyed herself, but today she was over the top crazy in love! As soon as she saw the sand and water she started waving and flapping in my arms and getting really excited. As soon as I put her down she was playing in the sand and telling us all about it. We then followed the other two into the water and she was in heaven. She was crawling all through the little waves and splashing around like her siblings. If I wasn't there to grab her she would have quite happily crawled out to sea - the waves and water in her face only egged her on and she was laughing with excitement. She loves Maria and Sam so much - the whole time she was giggling at their antics and trying to follow them. She crawled everywhere saying "Reeee-a! Reee-a!" (Maria/Ria) and only wanted to be with them. Sam crawled around with her and she was climbing all over him shrieking with delight.
We had such a lovely time. We are going to have to make the beach a regular expedition!