Homer Beach

Throwing rocks into the ocean...of course

Shordy burning off some energy

Removing her AGAIN from the water...and she is NOT happy with me!

I just thought this pic of Bo leaping through the air was HILARIOUS!!

I'm pointing out the bull-kelp to Shordy and we're talking about where it lives and how it got to the beach...I love teaching science stuff!

Shayne was on-call over Memorial Day weekend so we couldn't really leave and do anything for the weekend, but we were able to drive to Homer for the day which was nice just to get out of the house for a bit.

The weather wasn't great but it wasn't raining so we were able to get the dogs and kids out to run around on the beach for awhile, which was fun for everyone.

After sitting in the car for 1 1/2 hours, Shordy was ready to run...and run he did.  Thankfully the tide was out so he was able to run all over the beach with the dogs.  Tiny was absolutely enamored with the water, and was constantly trying to walk into it.  She loves water...in any form.  She also has no fear, which can be a very scary thing for mom when it comes to water.  She also loved digging her fingers through the sand.  She is very tactile and loves to feel and taste things.  Yes...she also ate the sand.  I remember Shordy eating sand in Hawaii when he was Tiny's age...I think the salt in the sand tastes good.

I had the camera at first, but then Shayne decided to take it and took some photos of me and the kids, which doesn't normally happen.  I then spent most of my time picking up a mad Tiny and moving her away from the water and small waves and onto the beach...so she could turn around and start walking right back to it again.  That is until she found the sand.  :)  Thank heavens for thick denim overalls.  :)

After we left here, we went to another rocky beach near the boat harbor towards the end of the spit.  We found the coolest surprise!!  There were hundreds of dark red starfish stranded on the rocks of the beach! And they weren't small starfish...there were some seriously large ones. Unfortunately I didn't grab my camera so I didn't get any pics of them, but Shayne had his ipod and I took some pics with that.  Shordy wouldn't touch them at first, but after watching mom and dad throw a bunch of them back into the ocean, he proceeded to pick up the smaller ones and throw them back too.  It was hard to get him to leave the beach b/c every step he took he'd find another starfish he needed to throw back in the ocean.

Dad also found some big rocks on the beach that when you lifted them up there were some small tidal pools under them with some very interesting (scary) looking invertebrates, that Shordy promptly decided to pick up to investigate.  It was pretty funny.  My poor Tiny girl was tired and wanted to go to sleep, so she was a bit cranky and wanted to get down, but the rocks were a little too hard for her new walking skills and this "beach" had a very steep slope to it, so it was nearly impossible for her to get around on it.  So...I had to hold her and that just made her more cranky.

We would have liked to have stayed a little longer here to help more starfish, but oh well...what can you do with a cranky one-year-old?

All in all, it was a fun day for all of us and a much needed break from the monotony of just playing at home.