I haven’t posted in the last 5 days. It is not often that I get time with my entire family, so my focus has been on them.

The weather has been just perfect. Even though we are officially still in Spring, it felt like Summer! We’ve got a water table that the kids love to play at, but we took advantage of the warm weather and set up their new sprinkler.

We picked this huge fire hydrant up at Sam’s Club and the kids love it. Water shoots from the side “plugs” and there is water that spins out of the top. Even my wife knows that you are never too old to run through the sprinkler.

Memorial Day was very laid back and I worked on some projects (more on those in another blog), but Tuesday was just the best day! Sam planned a day at the beach with the family. She also knows how much I have talked about my childhood summer vacation destination ….

As a boy, we spent many summer days in Caseville. I have written about it in the past. Prior to having kids, Sam surprised me with a day trip there. I was like a little kid! I remembered so many places. I have since told her that I would love to take the kids there. So we combined their first trip to a beach with their first trip to Caseville.

Choosing to go on the Tuesday after a holiday weekend had perks! We pretty much had the entire beach to ourselves! It was perfect! We lathered the kids up with sunscreen and before we could get some on ourselves, the kids were running toward the water!

Andrew loved every second of being there. At first he spent his time chasing seagulls, but eventually made it over to the water.

Neither kid has ever been to the beach, so they had no idea just how hard it is to run in the water. Both of them fell almost immediately and freaked out a bit. The main beach at Caseville is perfect for them because it doesn’t get too deep for a while. You can walk out pretty far and still be above water.

Ella was a bit scared after she fell in the water, but I walked her out a bit and held her hand all the way back because she was scared.

The water was cold at first, but that was always the way it was growing up. You know how it is, you go under water and then you are fine. There was a bit of wind that day, which made it a little chilly, but it was still fun to be there with the family. We even tried to build sand castles, but Andrew thought it was more fun to step on them once they were built.

Sam prepared a fantastic picnic lunch for us. She made sandwiches, packed some fruit, and plenty of water, iced tea, and juice boxes. She found this cool beach blanket that was perfect for us.

Of course, once the food came out, the seagulls were very interested in our picnic! Andrew wanted to throw them food, but we stopped him, thankfully. You know once they get a nibble of food, they want it all!

There was a point where the kids were cold and shivering, so we brought them up to the playscape and let them run around a bit. We were both surprised when Ella said that she was done with the beach. She said she would like to come back, but was ready to go home.

One thing we didn’t do was go by the old place that my grandparents had just out of town. We figured the kids were pooped, so we’d just head home. We did, however, stop by the new Caseville sign and get a family selfie.

The sign is a new sign. From what I read, they did a big upgrade to a lot of the signs in town to make them more “uniform.” What’s cool is that on the left of the sign the word “Caseville” is spelled out in the International Nautical Alphabet. You can see it a bit better in this picture of the kids.

After our long drive home, we decided that we didn’t want to cook. So we took the kids to the local pizza place and had a nice family dinner.

It was a fantastic day! Sam and I, however, realized soon enough that we had forgotten to put sunscreen on. Sam’s back and shoulders were just fried and my head was also pretty toasty. So we’ll be keeping the Aloe close by for the next couple days!