Me & Harry at Midnight

The house is quiet and I'm reading Harry Potter. Earlier today Rick brought home the recently released Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for me to read.

I can't wait to get to the end of this book! And, I get to enjoy it myself. Although Rick is a middle school teacher and Tatum is the perfect age and enjoys reading, neither are big HP fans.

Speaking of good reading, magic and dragons, I often wonder what has become of Saphira in the third and final book of the Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini. It was nearly a year ago they teased fans with an excerpt. Eragon was a fantastic story, Eldest wasn't quite as good. I must admit, a generous portion of my admiration for these books was the fact that the author was 15 and just out of high school when he wrote Eragon and 21YO when Eldest was published. I admire over-achievers.

Watery Wednesday

I suprised the kids with an afternoon at the aquatic center. As the sun heated the day to 100+ degrees, the water was quite inviting. The kids were busy for hours swimming, jumping and diving.

Rikard decided to stop one of the geysers at the entrance to the wading area.

He didn't move out of the way quite quickly enough on his first few attempts and got hit with the water stream. He finally got his timing worked out perfectly and was able to jump away from the water at lightening speed!
All the excitement of the day really wore Keeli out. She took a tiny cat nap on her towel.

Back at the Beach

Sand, surf and sunshine are always a good combination to keep the kids entertained.

Tatum was overwhelmed by a wave while searching for sand dollars.
Keeli played it safe all day and waded in the tiny waves.

Lisa and Rikard got a little crazy dancing and jumping over the waves while Tatum searched again for sand dollars and Justin and Collin waited for another big wave.

After a while all the waves are the same and the sand gets more interesting. Collin and Austin started to bury one another at the beach.

Clam Digging

Morning dawns cool and cloudy on the Pacific coast. The mist was rolling out when we got to the beach in the dig clams.

Digging wasn't as difficult or uncomfortable as I imagined. Rick and Cindy were expert at using the clam gun. The clam gun is a fancy little contraption made of PVC tubing and handles which costs about $15. It sure beats digging them with a shovel!

We each went home with our full limit. We had 90 clams to clean. There is a lot of chowder in our future.

While walking around in the surf alternately snapping photos and digging clams, I found two sand dollars. Tatum was thrilled when I returned to the campground.

Catch o'the Day

Friday started early.

The alarm went off at 4 a.m. and Rick was gone by 5 a.m. He went to dig clams with his uncle, aunt and cousin. I stayed in bed under the guise of having to stay and watch the kids, but secretly enjoying the comfort of the cabin and snuggling with the kids in the early morning.

The brought back 75 clams! We spent the morning making great plans for chowder and fried clams for dinner. I avoided learning to clean them - this time.

Randy taught us to catch crabs with a folding net that attaches to the end of a fishing line...

and with a crab net or bucket. Rick got pretty good at throwing it in and pulling it up.

We brought home 14 crabs, that was enough to fill a 5 gallon bucket. Dinner was great!