Watch the progression

Summer has finally arrived here in Monterey and we celebrated by heading to the local beach. Most schools in the area have already started so we had the beach almost to ourselves. The only other people were exploring the beach on horses to some of the children's delight.
The six children began the beach play by building a fort, corralling huge logs from all over the beach, moving dried tree limbs and grabbing long lines of sea weed to construct the building. A left behind comforter became a great roof and soon they were all inside, playing and giggling.
I for one did not come with the expectation of swimming, because what is considered warm here is still cool anywhere else in the country and the Pacific is never warm enough for a dip. Lukas and Noah were only set on building and digging on the beach... well, the waves beckoned, and the sun shone brightly and it did not take long before they were all dipping their feet in the cold water. (Monterey Bay water temperature rarely hits 60 degrees, so it is cold) As their feet got used to the chill, they wandered further and further out, maybe their legs were numb by now and they could not tell how cold they were. Slowly but shortly they got in deeper and deeper until everyone was dripping wet from shoulder to toes.
Luckily, my friend is a prepared Mom and had brought not only swim trunks for her children, but also beach towels for not only hers but my little ones as well.
We brought back six wet but very happy children and probably 20 lbs of sand sticking to their feet, legs, arms, hands, hair and bottoms - but they had a great time.

And the clean up for me was easy: the washer and dryer was right there... inside so little boys could run naked to the shower to clean up. A perfect day in our book!