Yackity Yack

We took the kids whale and dolphin watching at Dana Point on Captain Dave's Dolphin Safari. It was something we wanted to do for a while but Taede wasn't old enough. He's still on the young side but what the heck.

Malia was excited and so was Kael. But then he thought about it and changed his mind. He was worried about sharks, pirates and the boat sinking. Or actually, it was pirates causing the boat to sink causing us to be eaten by sharks. I had to reassure him that there were no pirates, and as I reassured him that we weren't going to sink and we wouldn't run into any sharks, the thought did cross my mind that I was playing with Murphy's Law. Something that never works in my favor.

I was solely focused on the kids: I hope we see a whale, I hope there are dolphins, I hope Taede doesn't fall overboard... So I didn't put much thought into myself. Meaning: I wasn't properly drugged up for the trip.

The going out part wasn't so bad. But then we went out over 11 miles to find the gray whale. So it took a while to get there. Then we found the whale so the captain cut the motor. So we drifted along, gently rolling with the waves. Up and down, up and down. Just thinking about it now makes me queasy again. I managed to hold myself together; it's never a good idea to show any kind of weakness in front of the kids. Truong took the older two kids to the front of the boat for a closer look and I planted myself at the back, where there's the least amount of rocking. Luckily Taede was content to hang with me rather than wander the boat. I was so bad off that if my eyes wandered away from the horizon on the left side, I would be in immediate danger of yacking. So to the leftside I stayed. Apparently Lady Luck took pity on me and made sure the whale stayed on the left side of the boat. Because I gotta tell you: if it was on the right side of the boat, I would have been SOL (sh#t out of luck) and would have missed the whale sighting completely. I was. NOT. moving.

Taede was fascinated with the whale. Each time it went under, he'd point and babble to get it to come back up. Interestingly, the dolphins scared him. I thought the dolphins would be cooler because there were more of them and when they leaped out of the water, you could see their whole body, thus identify what they were. The whale was so massive that you could only see the top of it and quite honestly, it could have been the Lochness Monster for all we knew. As I ohh'ed and ahh'ed over the dolphins, I thought Taede fell asleep. But upon closer inspection, he had tucked his head into my neck with his fingers doing the peekaboo screen. I guess the sheer amount of dolphins freaked him out.

After a while I was not able to find the energy to enjoy the sealife. I was too concerned with holding myself together. Truong took the kids to the underwater pod to view the dolphins underwater so I was on deck by myself with Taede. My mouth started watering and I knew the situation suddenly became very dire. I frantically waved Truong over and literally dumped Taede into his arms. I didn't even make it 5 feet, much less the 20 feet it would take to get to the head (bathroom). Luckily for me (and everyone onboard) there was a waste bucket a mere 3 feet away. And I have to tell you: it felt good to let it all go. As luck would have it, everyone was still in front of the boat so no one was there to witness my humiliation. But honestly, it's kind of like giving birth: you don't care who's there to witness, you just want it done. Afterwards, I was still a little shaky but nowhere near the desperation I was at before.

I was never so happy to be back in the car, on solid ground. At least I know one thing for sure: cruises are definitely out in our future vacations.

Enjoy the pictures!

Whale and Dolphin Watching

Backlog of pictures

I have some new pictures posted. Sure it's a few months late. I've been busy. You keep 3 kids at home all summer and see how much you get done.

Kael's Field Trip - Marine Mammal Center
This was the last big field trip for Kael's class. It took some working and rearranging (grandma took a day off from work) but I finally managed to chaperon one. Kael was so happy. Armed with a couple of ziplock gallon sized barf bags, I was ready to go. Luckily I didn't need it. I did come close on the trip home though as Grace (the other Mom Chaperon) and I spent the entire 40 minutes texting. Sitting on that school bus, wishing for a more supportive bra, brought back some memories. Well... not so much memories of a more supportive bra but certainly of the bouncing around part.

June 20 - Wild Animal Park
We met some cousins at the Wild Animal Park. The weather report stated that it would be cool. Well, it lied. It was HOT. So the kids cooled down at the little water splash park they have in the Heart of Africa. Good news: the kids got to cool down. Bad news: we didn't bring extra clothes. Why - you ask? Well because the weather report said it was going to be cool.


July 19 - Tanaka Farm Watermelon Tour
This is a local farm in Irvine that provides tours of their operations. They stop along various points of the farm and provide farm fresh (literally pulled from the ground) produce for us to eat. The kids had a great time and they sampled a variety of veggies. Kael discovered that he liked raw corn and has been asking to eat it that way. Whether or not corn from the grocery store will taste as good as fresh corn from the farm remains to be seen.

Cousin Connor's Birthday Party
Connor turned 2 and we had a great time at his party. His community has an uber-fun splash park just down the street. Wish we lived closer.




Deciding if he should go in or not...






Swiped Malia's bucket and decided to test out the waters.


He was fixated on these cannons and would get so mad whenever someone fired water at him. Which was like shooting a sitting duck as he tried to collect water in his bucket from said cannons.

Money down the toilet

That's what buying Kael's shoes is like: flushing money down the toilet.

His feet grew again. He's now a kid size 1.5. This is huge considering most of his friends are still in toddlers' 11-13 (after 13 is when you move into kid size 1+).

We just bought him a pair of 13's a few months ago. "Few" meaning 3 or 4 months, not 6 or 7 months. Luckily it's summer so he's in crocs 99% of the time anyway. I'm not going to buy anything (shoes, school uniforms, dress clothes) until the very last minute. Meaning: school begins August 31 so I'll start looking for shoes and uniforms a few days before. In fact, I'm not even going to buy him uniform pants until it starts raining.

Kael's Experiment

Way back in March, when Kael first lost his tooth, we introduced the Tooth Fairy (TF). She collects teeth (kind of gross if you ask me) and leaves a present behind. Our TF also leaves behind a note, expounding on the importance of good brushing and flossing habits. For gifts, she leaves the gold Sacajawea coins.

The first time TF wasn't ready for the exchange because what kid in their right mind would purposefully yank out their own teeth? I remember as a kid I wouldn't let my parents come near my loose one until the adult tooth was well in place (hence the need for orthodontia work). I figured my kids would be the same way.

But no, Kael yanked out his first one at 9:30pm. I had no money, no note, no toys... nothing. On top of that, Kael went to Dad and Dad didn't tell me until past 10:00pm. A "Oh, and by the way..." kind of thing.

I scrambled around and after digging through the ashtray in my car where loose change is usually kept, I found 3 gold coins. Zipped out a note and the TF was saved.

A couple of days later, I found Kael at my desk writing a note, right before bedtime. I happened to ask him what he was writing, and thank goodness I did. He revealed to me that he was writing a note to the Tooth Fairy, to say thank you for the gifts. He had a couple of other things there as well, gifts for the TF:



The note reads: "Thanks for the money Tooth Fairy. Look I left something." He gave her a sticky frog and a bug card. Very sweet I thought. I was a little concerned that Kael was starting to see TF as a potential pen pal though.

Fast forward to July and he pulled out another tooth. While at the water park. What the heck am I supposed to do with it?! So I put it in my wallet for safe keeping. And there it sat for a few days because I (I mean -- the Tooth Fairy) couldn't find the time to get to the bank (alone) to get some Sacajawea coins.

We finally found a little mountain of those coins when Truong decided to cash in our 10 gallon jug of coins. In fact, we have enough for all of my kids' teeth!

Anyway, TF did the exchange and all was well. Or at least I thought it was.

This morning Truong mentioned something about Kael waiting to hear from the Tooth Fairy. I thought he meant Kael was missing his note from the TF, the one I saw Taede playing with. Truong said no, that's not the one. It's something else. Kael's waiting for a response to something. I was still in a morning stupor and didn't know what he was talking about so we dropped it.

Later, I got a tickle in my brain and decided to investigate. This is what I found under Kael's pillow:



He had written a note and stuck it under his pillow without telling me. Further, he even told Dad to NOT tell me! Like it was some kind of Tooth Fairy test!!!

Can you believe that?! So of course the Tooth Fairy failed. But I covered her ass by pretending ignorance: "Daddy didn't tell me anything. What are you talking about? I got a weird email from the TF this morning about how sorry she was she couldn't come over last night because a lot of children lost their teeth yesterday. Why was she coming over? Did you lose another tooth?"

I could tell he wasn't as sure of himself. I played dumb really well. I could see the wheels churning around, tossing about this new bit of information.

So my next step is to set up a Tooth Fairy email account, send myself an email from her and let Kael check it out. Maybe this way he can start emailing her instead of hiding messages under his pillow.

Jeez.

Embarrassing picture #3062

When he's hot, he's really hot.




He loves wearing Malia's princess shoes. Both he and his sister clack around the house all day.

See? I told you.

Stop touching it, Kael.

Kael. If you keeping playing with it, it's going to fall off.

Please. Stop. Touching. It.

Get your fingers out of there!!

Stop playing with it. You're going to break it.

Would you quit doing that in front of me?

It hurts because you keep playing with it.

Kael: OH MY GOSH MOM!! I BROKE IT!! IS IT BLEEDING?!!

Tooth #2
See? I told you if you kept playing with it, it'd fall off.

Midget Carrots

This is our first year growing carrots so we have no idea what we're
doing. It looks good from the surface but when you pluck one from the
ground -- it's smaller than Malia's finger. At least that was the size
of our carrots about 3 weeks ago.

Today it was bigger. Maybe a little bigger than Truong's thumb. It's
all relative, right. If I had to guess the growing cycle of regular
sized carrots you see at the store, based on our current experience,
I'd have to say at least a year! So every few weeks I will pluck one
out to see if they are ready. Maybe I bought dwarf carrot seeds or
something.

Malia doesn't care how big it is. As long as it's from our garden,
she'll eat it. Too bad we can't grow a steak bush. Or a chicken vine.
That would be awesome.

- sent from iPhone

All about Taede

Taede loves Malia and Kael. Loves them. He tries to copy them in everything they do. It's kind of cute seeing him chase after Kael and the neighborhood boys as they run around playing whatever violent shoot 'em game boys that age are into. Given a choice, I of course would prefer that he play a different kind of game but what am I going to do? Isolate him from Kael and the boys during parties? Taede knows how to properly hold a lightsaber and shoot a blaster. If said blaster is too big (as most are) he turns it around on his shoulder and carries it like a bazooka.

During the school year while Kael's in school he spends all his time with Malia. 20% of the time they play together. 80% of the time they fight. Taede is the Master at the Snatch and Run method of playing. Malia will set up all her princess stuff set up in the doll house and you can see Taede lurking in the perimeter, waiting for the perfect moment to swoop in, snatch a Princess and then run to me with Malia hot on his trail, shrieking like a demon from hell. It's kind of funny, actually. I feel bad for Malia and will put him a time-out but honestly, it's really hard not to laugh out loud.

Malia loves to dress up and I'm noticing now that he's pretty good at playing dress up too.

The best part? He can put the shoes on himself and click clack his way around the house without slipping. He just has to make sure he doesn't wear Malia's favorite shoes. See how mad she is in the background?

He's also getting pretty good at putting on make-up. Usually, however, it's pretend make-up. Once in a while I'll put chapstick on him myself (he's never done it himself). Malia loves putting on my chapstick - she slathers on a pretty thick coat before I am able to wrestle the little tube away. And I forget how very observant his is. We had dinner at Malia's BFF Audrey's house last night and the girls were playing with a stamp set. Audrey told me that Taede was putting the stamp on his lips. I look over and noticed that he was using the stamper like lipstick, but the cap was on. Since I was washing dishes, I took note of his action and put in a mental sticky note to tell him "No Mouth" when I finished. A split second after that mental note, he took off the cap and...

I busted a gut laughing (more than a little impressed that he correctly swiped the right part of his face). Linda, true to form, freaked out and ran over to him with Baby Ethan on her hip and then ran back to get a wipe to wipe it off. I yelled NO WAIT!! She stopped and thought maybe I wanted to use water, soap, something stronger than a baby wipe.

But no. I just wanted to get a picture before she cleaned him up.

Ironman

First day of summer...

We were supposed to go to Splash (a water park with some friends) but it was overcast and pretty cold. So I cancelled that trip and went to Plan B: going to the park with another family who happened to be free that morning. By 10:15am the four Mai's were running around at the park. Sweating. Yes, sweating, because it got hot. In fact, it got so hot that I found myself trying to stand in the shadow of the playground equipment as I watched over Taede. I started feeling bad about canceling the Splash trip -- especially when Kael would say to me every once in a while, with very pointed looks: "Mom, I'm so hot" and "It's really hot here" and "I wish I could find a way to cool myself down." OK OK! I get it -- you're disappointed. As if my guilt-o-meter wasn't already in the red zone.

Then I get a text from Anne, Kael's friend Ella's mom. The family we were supposed to meet at Splash. Her text read something like: The water's warm, not crowded at all and Ella's really disappointed.

Sheesh.

Given the increasingly hostile environment I was in, I decided that since it was only 11am, and if I could hustle, we could make Splash by 12pm, stay until 1:30 or so and sleep the rest of the afternoon. Let me tell you, when I proposed the change of plans, I have never seen my kids haul ass so quickly to get ready or listen so well.

We get to Splash and play until 1:45pm. Taede fell asleep for about 20 minutes there and about 20 minutes home. Basically just enough to take the edge off and not nap the rest of the afternoon. Ugh.

I had to wake Malia up at 4:30pm otherwise her bedtime would be compromised. She didn't stagger out of bed until close to 5:00pm. Taede was running on fumes. Kael was pretty quiet. Not stupor quiet. Just...quiet.

And then I remembered it was Monday. Monday is Kael's swim squad day (his swim strokes class). Where for 35 minutes he swims back and forth across the pool, getting timed.

DOH!

So we started this morning with a 6:30am "Psst, Mom. Do I have school today?" to a park date to Splash to swim squad.

My little Ironman was asleep before the covers were pulled over his head.

Summer has begun!

Payback's a b!tch.

I took a day off today and left the kids under Truong's complete care. I was home... but I wasn't there. I had a hair appointment at 7:30am and didn't come home until 10:00am. The house was a mess. The kids were doing random things and Truong was (of course) watching golf. I made him turn it off and interact with his children and then went upstairs to clean up as I had to take Kael to a birthday party at 11:00am.

As Kael and I started to leave, I looked over and noticed Truong was watching the younger two kids -- with his eyes closed. I of course yelled him awake and gave him the evil stink eye before we left.

I swear...

A little later right before dinner, he gathered the kids together to pick up their toys. The balls, of course, were scattered to the far corners of the house and under the couch. I could hear Truong swearing away about "damn balls" as he used Kael's lightsaber to fish them out from under the couch.

I had to stifle a giggle or two. I will admit it warmed my heart to see him gather balls. I only wished the kids did a better job of scattering them. I figure a few more days of having him clean up those damn balls and the fate of the ball pit is pretty well sealed.

{rubbing my hands together in anticipation}

Please stop before my head gets too big.

Me: "So are you looking forward to the end of school?"

Kael: "No, not really. I like school."

Me (a little insulted): "But don't you want to spend time with me and your sister and baby brother??"

Kael (thinking about it, seeming to realize what he said): "Oh, yeah. I guess so Mom. I mean, yes, I want to spend time with you."

Pause.

"But if there's a science camp, I'd like to do that too."

So close

Two and a half weeks left of school and I finally get a phone call from school. Various friends have broken a variety of bones over the course of the school year and I would have bet the farm that Kael would have fallen in that group as well. But as we neared June 18, I thought he was in the clear.

OK, OK, I admit this isn't bad when compared to a broken bone. But it felt really weird. Usually Kael's head injuries are firm goose eggs. This felt... squishy. Like soft tofu. I actually called the doctor's office for this one, and was told to watch for dizziness and nausea.

So I got the phone call this morning and I had just finished making Taede's lunch. Darn it! Kael is not a graceful ceature so I'm used to head injuries with him (meaning: I'm not completely alarmed). I asked Mrs. Schaeffer:

"Is he bleeding?"
No.

"Is he conscious?"
Yes.

"Is he lucid?"
Yes.

"OK, he's fine. I'll swing by at 11:45 to check him out when I pick up Malia."

It was 10:00am when they called me. That was bad, right? To make him wait almost 2 hours before checking on him? Poor guy. But let it be known, that if there was a broken bone involved, I swear I would have left right away. Really. I swear it.

Btw, he and his friend AJ apparently ran full throttle into each other and both got knocked on the ass.

Ouch!

-- sent by iPhone

I need a beer.

Too bad I don't drink.

It's almost 8:00pm. The kids are showered and in bed. I'm finally eating dinner. After dinner, I have to clean up the kids' dinner mess, wash dishes and unload the dishwasher. Then sweep the floor of all the weird stuff I'm stepping on (I don't want to know what they are). Then make the kids' school lunches. Then prep dinner for tomorrow (it's another full day so we're crock potting it). Finish laundry. Pick up the stupid damn balls for the stupid damn ball pit. Get swim stuff ready and in the car (I don't want to be that loser mom where I forget their swim gear -- for the 3rd time). Hopefully I'll have time left to work on the computer on my personal projects. Then shower (maybe get a snack if there's time) and get to bed.

Whew!

What are the chances of getting to bed before midnight?

Solo parenting sucks.

Oh yeah...

"I remember now why you didn't want the ball pit." -- Truong, Clueless Dad

Why I ought to....

-Sent by iPhone

The Budding Artist

And when he's done, he holds it up and says "Uh! Uh!", waiting for
(expecting) the appropriate sounds of awe from me.

- Sent from iPhone

Oh god. It's back.

The Ball Pit.

The kids love it.
I hate it.

It was Truong's idea and he swears he will clean up the mess every
night. Which I find hard to believe since (1) he's out of town the
next 2 weeks and (2) the balls do not magically reappear back in the
pit after 3 kids go diving in it. I'll be spending my waking hours
chasing after those damn balls.

I should have known this beast would be resurrected. Afterall, I was
saving the 200 plastic balls in 2 trash bags in the garage. I am my
mother's child. She's still got several jackets that I wore in high
school hanging in the closet. Like her, I just could not bring myself
to get rid of 200 perfectly usable plastic balls.

I do have to say the look of glee on Taede's face makes it worth it.
For now anyway. It's only been up since this morning and we've been
gone all morning until naptime. I'll post an update later this week...
If I'm not too busy secretly sabatoging the ball pit, stealthly
throwing away balls one at a time, so the kids won't notice the ball
level slowly going down. Muwahahaa!

- Sent by iPhone

Helmet Head

The Good News: she loves wearing her new helmet.

The Bad News: she's in the house.

-- Sent by iPhone

The Karate Kids

Taede loves karate. He loves watching Kael in class. He loves going to the dojo. He always tries to get on the sparring mat. He even bows when he enters the dojo.

We try to practice with Kael at home whenever we get a chance, and I started noticing Taede copying the moves. Complete with the vocals.

It's so funny.

Kael was practicing his spinning back kick, hence the twirl on Taede's part.



FYI - That little jig that Kael does at the end.... not part of the kata.

The Ball

Nothing completes a playdate better than a dance set to the right music (from Beauty and the Beast).

I love how Malia admires herself in the handheld mirror.



And this is how I found her one day. Talk about a flash of insight into her tween and teen years...


She's chatting with either Audrey or Gina.

Better than XM Radio

Taede has his own boom-box. Sure, it plays the same 2 songs and the songs are about 8 seconds long and the volume choices are loud and LOUDER -- but it's his. He used to play the thing constantly. I mean constantly. As in continuously for 30 minutes. My head would getthisclose to exploding. It's a true testament of my mothering skills that I haven't chucked the damn thing in the garbage can. If he didn't look so darned cute dancing, it would have been a goner a long time ago.





Whenever he falls, he rubs his head. Even if he didn't bump his head. He could have bumped his elbow and he'd still rub his head.

Plop, plop...

Who would have guessed they can bounce??

And survive to bounce another day?!!



Don't blink otherwise you'll miss it: each time I have the little camera out to record, he automatically does a karate move. I got a little bit of a front kick with a kee-ah! It's hilarious.

Kindergarten Musical

JK and Kindergarten had a musical titled "A Typical Day in Music Class." It was very cute. I only recorded Kael's class (about 16 minutes) out of the hour long program.



FYI - I was not drunk when I recorded the program. Taede was with me and he was a little monkey, climbing all over me. I finally got him set-up with a movie on the iPhone and all was well.


The video is in QuickTime format so you'll need the FREE QuickTime player. If you don't have QuickTime installed, you probably want to do so as most of our movies will now be created on the MacBook, which needs QuickTime to play.

Malia

Malia is still enjoying dance with her BFFEE (that's Best Friend Forever and Ever and Ever) Audrey. Taede loves dance too as he's constantly running out onto the dance floor whenever he sees the gate open. He likes to copy the girls with their dance moves and loves to twirl with the ribbons. My poor baby. He needs his own Taede class.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of Malia in dance.





And Little Man Taede with his big big eyes.

Lost in translation

My parents made a surprise visit last week and stayed for a few days. The kids were beyond excited and had a great time with their grandparents, even though I doubt my parents understood a word the kids said.

I had to run a couple of errands on Saturday and my mom wanted to tag along. So there we were in the car, driving to the store. My mom is chatting about nothing in particular. It's almost like I'm driving with one of the kids: whatever catches her eye, is what she talks about. We happened to be behind a sedan, filled with 4 people. In the backseat sat 2 men, one is bald and the other balding. We were at a red light so there was plenty of time to notice the occupants in the car in front of us. My mom made a comment about how different white people (as in Caucasians) look from us.

I peer at her from the side of my eye, thinking: what the hell is she talking about? Of course we look different; we're different ethnicities!

Then she said something like "Look at the bald man. Look at his skin. It's so bare."

Again, I give her another look, checking... for what I'm not sure. But I was just making sure she was OK.

"His skin is so... red. Everywhere. His head, his neck... It's red. Not like us. We're brown, yellow, even. But he's red."

Pause. I wasn't sure if this required a response, so I did the standard response I do with the kids: I said nothing.

And then I hear her muttering "Redneck. Redneck." Like Oh! that's what that means.

I started laughing. And couldn't stop. She of course wanted to know what was so funny but I couldn't tell her. I wanted to tell her because I didn't want her to use "redneck" out of context but I really couldn't tell her. I don't have a strong enough grasp of the Vietnamese language to explain what redneck really means. And clearly, I don't have enough mastery of the English language either to explain it in a way that she would understand.

I toyed with the idea of telling her not say that word but having experience with my children, I worried that it would just open a can of why's. So instead I told her I didn't think Baldy looked that red. He looked more tan. And remember Mom, he's white, so he wouldn't tan like us. Because he's different.

Ugh.

Thank goodness the kids weren't in the car.

They are here.

It's that time of year again. The time when Kael anxiously awaits the arrival of his special package from Uncle Thien. He doesn't know what he gets, but he knows it's going to be something cool. The real unknown is: how many legs? I've already established the Golden Rule of NO WINGS. If it flies, it dies. Tragically, an accident, could be by a shoe, or maybe a rolled up newspaper. However the accident happens, it will fly no more. I don't care where it came from, I don't care if it flew a million miles to land on Thien's desk and he sent it to Kael. If it flies, it dies. That is the rule.

Kael opening his long awaited package.

In the past Thien has sent us the silkworms in a box. A box. He plops them in, packs it with leaves and sends them on their way. They eat and eat, and by the time Kael gets them (2 days later) they have grown enough to literally burst out of the box when it's opened. This time Thien got fancy and put them in a container, which baffled Kael.

Prepping their new home.

Transferring the silkworms. Taede is so fascinated. Thanks to Kael, he loves bugs. In fact, "bug" was one of his first words.

Close-up. Why can't my kid be interested in something like.... grass? Or food? Or... or.... or even rocks. Why bugs?!

"What the heck is that?! Is it moving?!!"

Kael and worm, reunited.

All you squeamish people out there, this one's for you.

Taede was trying to grab the silkworms and Truong blocked him. We didn't want squishy worms. That would be very very bad.

But Taede was so insistent on touching one...

Miss Malia holding a silkworm, which I was a little surprised at since she's never wanted to hold them in the past. She's coming along, our little Princess. She let the ginormous Australian Leaf Insect crawl all over her and now she's holding a silkworm. Great -- all 3 kids are comfortable with bugs. Just freaking great.

Taede finally gets to hold one solo. His first time. He's being so careful.

"I told you you can trust me."

I can just see the battle to hold the worms each time we change out the leaves. It's going to be hard keeping him out of the box.

Corona Del Mar

Wednesday we took my sister and her family to Corona Del Mar. It's our favorite beach for various reasons -- the #1 reason being we can pretty much back up to the beach and not have to go far with all our gear. Well worth the $8 parking fee IMO. It was a perfect day for the beach. Probably the best beach day we've had. All 3 kids thoroughly enjoyed the beach, the weather was not hot and not chilly, I didn't have a crawler to hover over, Kael is an accomplished swimmer, Malia enjoys the sand more... and all that meant I was able to enjoy myself.

Starting the moat.

No beach trip is complete without putting the kids to work digging.

Beautiful picture of my niece heading for a dip. But pictures can be deceiving: the water was freezing!!

Not sure if they dug the moat around Taede or if he decided to squat his territory.

Taede helping with the digging. He moved sand from Spot A to Spot B, which was about 4 inches to the right.

The completed moat. The kids did pretty good. Truong added the architectural features of the towers.

'Allo, mate. Want to put a shrimp on the bar-bee?

Amelie enjoying the moat.

Kael and Amelia playing in the freezing cold water. Brrr!!

Ahh... nothing better than squishy, wet sand.