Half A World Away: Our Summer Beach Trip

After the boys finished school in early May, we took a 3 day trip to a beach 3-4 hours from our home. It's the only beach within reasonable driving distance from our home. There is a hotel there, but aside from running water, A/C and TV (local language channels - picture the Spanish channel there in Milwaukee) it's basically camping. We bring our own sheets, pillows, some food (there is a restaurant where you can get some food, but there's not much variety), lots of bug spray, etc. This is the same place we went in December when we got rained out. This time we went with some colleagues and one of the boys' teachers. We rented a car so that was a treat too (we don't own a car here yet).

This is the first time that the kids have found a lot of starfish.

There were MANY but they were really TINY.

We didn't end up taking them home though the boys wanted to.

We went down the beach a ways one day and the kids played in a fresh water creek that feeds into the ocean. The water was MUCH cleaner and of course less scary for the little ones.

Our vacation spot is also this man's place to beach his fishing boats.

Cleaning his nets in the fresh water - they also gutted the fish upstream from us-smelly but we just wrinkled our noses and kept playing!

Josh helping Katrina fall asleep for her morning nap on the beach.

Katrina "honked out", as Julia says.

Julia enjoying the ocean.

Getting dumped on!

The boys and their teacher Daniel

coming back from "Shell Beach" with a bucket full of shells!

Staying hydrated.

My boys enjoying the ocean!

Posed shot.

Our colleague opening up a coconut while Daniel looks on.

Katrina up from her nap - snack time!

Sunset on another part of the beach.

Took many shots - here are only a few...

There were a bunch of sculptures of animals in this "park-like" area.

The kids enjoyed climbing up on them.

Enjoying the sunset.

Beautiful!

Our wild guys!

Julia taking the bull by the horns...

The next morning - the beach just down from our hotel rooms.

Julia and her friend enjoy the water!

Can't dig to China here - we'd end up in America...or something...

The people on the left are part of the spectator crew. They seem to be fascinated with the "Westerners" playing on the beach. They especially love to watch our kids. Our colleagues had the excellent idea of bringing a blow-up pool to the beach so the little ones could play in the water without fear of the waves. Katrina loved splashing in the water - and it was nice to not have her in the sand!

Daddy holding his little girl.

During the hottest hours of the day the kids did activities in our hotel room.

The "rug" on the floor is like astroturf.

Being silly - like usual!

A warm glow from the sun...

Scrounding around for things to chew on - will those teeth ever come out???

Our hotel room - a double and a single. Katrina slept in her car seat this time.

Last time her bed was a suitcase. The boys shared a room with Daniel.

The last afternoon. Actually we didn't know we were leaving that day. Turns out we misunderstood or miscalculated the dates and that night there was a regularly-scheduled discotech evening - which means LOUD DANCE MUSIC til 4 in the morning. We weren't willing to deal with that so we started packing at around 7:30 that evening and were on the road by 9.

Josh enjoying the cool water. We had heard that it was jellyfish season and came somewhat prepared to deal with possible stings. Spencer was stung on the hand and Josh on his heel but neither sting was bad and the pain went away in a couple of hours. THEN that afternoon - just as I was taking the picture above, Daniel was stung badly by a jellyfish. It was scary - he was in a lot of pain and had some facial paralysis. That was another reason we were eager to just head home once we heard that the discotech was going to be "on". Thankfully he recovered - though he will probably be scarred in the place he was stung (his left hand, if I remember correctly).

This is not THE jellyfish that stung Daniel - but one they found in the water around the same time - it was already dead and they just pushed it to shore with the frisbee. The toxins in their tentacles are still active even though they are dead.