Buckle Up, This One's A Long One

We got a slightly later than normal start this morning. Quinn initially said he didn't want to go to the beach, but I told him I would have none of that. I told him we're paying for a beach vacation and we will be out there enjoying the beach whether he likes it or not. But even though we got to the beach later than we have for the past couple of days, it was completely deserted when we got there. So we set up shop and started enjoying the beach, and it wasn't too long before everyone else started showing up. I'm really not sure why it was so quiet this morning. Maybe the rain storm that came through last night had something to do with it. Who knows, for a while though it was as if we had the beach to ourselves.


Catherine finally started warming up to the idea of playing in the water today. She's been hanging out at the edge of the water hanging onto Ginger for the past couple of days when she's ventured to the water (and digging in the sand when she was back at the blanket). Today though she started sitting down in the sand and making butterflies. Which is apparently akin to making snow angels, but you don't lay down and just move your arms.


Quinn spent more time today fishing and just running through the water. Hard to believe this is the kid that several years ago wouldn't even walk on the sand because it felt weird. He also was asked me to take him out into the waves several times also.


After we had our fill of the beach we came back to the house. As per usual it wasn't too long until it was just the kids and myself as we played in the pool while Ginger went inside and showered and got lunch ready.

After lunch Quinn did some cantelope tasting so that he could play the Wii some. And I got to see what I thought was an urban legend up close and personal. I keep hearing these stories of people throwing the Wii remote, but had always thought people were just making that up. Apparently not. During bowling Quinn launched the Wii controlled across the room and hit the ceiling just above the TV. I suppose it could have been worse and he could have hit the TV. After that in addition to the strap being on his wrist, I made sure it was nice and tight (it had been on when it happened, it just wasn't tight enough I guess).


Then in the afternoon we drove up to Timbuck II in Corolla for mini golf (which I see from Rob's comment should not be called Putt Putt, so that puts that discussion to bed I suppose) and racing. Turns out they have junior go karts there which you have to be 46 inches in order to drive. I think Quinn might be just under that, but they let him go ahead anyway. He did pretty good. There weren't a lot of cars on the track with him (they only have special races every so often where only the junior carts go out), so he wasn't in a lot of traffic. He was so serious driving though, I couldn't tell if he was having any fun or whether it was stressing him out. I filmed some of it with the little hand held Nikon and I could just kick myself, because on the last lap where they pull in I stopped filming as he was coming around the last corner. Two cars had stopped before him the first one stopped fine, and the second car bumped the first one pretty hard. The attendant was out directing the kids to the side to stop, but Quinn was still going full throttle, the attendant made a dash over to him I suppose thinking he could stop him from hitting the other kids who had just bumped each other at that point when at the last instant Quinn veers around the cars almost running over the attendant. To his credit the attendant made a an amazing jump using what appeared to be cat like reflexes to jump out of the way and just barely missed Quinn running him over. I thought it was hysterical, but it was probably only funny since no one got hurt, which is good. Quinn then zipped around the two stopped cars and pulled in right where he started and stopped on a dime. Afterwards we found out why he had done that. He had been told by the attendants before the race started that when the race was over he was suppose to park the car back where he started. Evidently he was merely following that instruction to the letter. It kills me though that I missed getting all this on video by about two seconds of filming though. As for how serious he looked when driving, once he was done he told us his hands had been sweating while he was driving.




After that we were going to do the paddle boat around a man made inlet, but Catherine insisted she wanted to do the mini golf instead. I decided (wisely I think) that I wouldn't play, so Ginger didn't either. The golf course was unusual in that it only had bricks blocking the play area in a couple places on each hole, so both kids spent some time in the rough (Quinn moreso than Catherine since he hits the ball harder than she does). Turns out Ginger and me not playing was a good decision, because after about 13 holes the kids had gotten their fill of playing and were about done (and we were getting held up by three or four groups in front of us), so we just skipped some holes and called it a game. And Catherine still doesn't have the whole golfing concept down pat yet. Her method of playing golf looks much more like someone playing ice hockey that mini golf.

So one more photo request. John had requested some food shots. I should have taken pictures of the dinner Ginger and I had tonight. Sea Scallops that we bought at one of the seafood markets while we were out today. Man those were good. But I told John I didn't really have any food shots because we're not eating out, and his next request was more beefcake pictures, so without further ado...


I'm almost positive this isn't what he wanted to see (I'll go as far as to say no one would willingly want to be exposed to this). The one thing I've learned from this picture though is I need to get in shape, I can see love handles. If only I actually exercised.


The sunset looked promising tonight, but then fizzled. So I've got some marginal shots, but nothing really good.