An Early Morning Adventure

I love surprising my kids with fun adventures, or so-called adventures.  Anyway, these are the tales of our adventure to the beach for breakfast (not the ocean, mind you…just the Great Lake where we live).  

At 6:25am I quietly entered Sweet Boy’s room.  I sat down on his bed, rubbed his back and asked, “Would you like to go on an adventure?”  To which I received a short, “No.”  Then I asked him if he would like to go on an adventure me and Grandma.  The response changed.  A smile crept upon that precious face as he rolled over and he started to inquire where it was we were going.  “It’s a surprise.”  

At the exact moment, I started hearing my Sweet Girl’s voice calling for me.  We changed clothes, hopped in my already packed car and were off!  We met Grandma and headed to McDonald’s drive-thru to pick up part of our breakfast. 

Upon arriving at the beach’s entrance, we noticed the gate was chain locked.  Locked?!?  It was 7:20am now.  How could it be locked?  Wasn’t it supposed to open at 6am?  Someone was sleeping on the job!  We waited a few minutes and then decided to drive to another beach.  I turned on the GPS, but couldn’t tell which way to go and made a wrong turn.  

I went to make a “U-turn when possible,” only to find a drive that said Authorized and Emergency Vehicles Only.  Well, I wasn’t an emergency vehicle and I surely wasn’t authorized, but I had a feeling it might be connected to the park.  Thank you, Lord, for wrong turns!  It was the maintenance building and we found out that they were about to go open the gates.  If not for the wrong turn, we would have detoured to the beach farther away.  

So we arrived at the beach much to the delight of my kids.  I spread out towels while my kids reacquainted their toes to the sand.  We enjoyed our breakfast while listening to the seagulls and small waves.  However, the mood quickly changed when we were harassed by a swarm of killer bees (ok, just one REALLY annoying bee who was after Sweet Girl’s yogurt).  If anyone knows how to not pass on fear of bees to your kids when you are afraid of them, please let me know.  

After breakfast, we searched for all kinds of fun rocks: colored rocks, big rocks, flat rocks, shaped rocks.  It is amazing the simple pleasures of little children.  My biggest delight was watching Sweet Boy’s courage grow as he chased the seagulls.  He must have spent 25 minutes chasing the swarms of birds.  What great exercise and laughter!  

With that, we worked our way back to the car.  Refreshed by the breezy air and beautiful sunrise.  Satisfied with simple pleasures and revitalized from spending a quiet morning with those so dear. 

P.S. – Did I mention this was #6 on my Summer Fun Activities List.  Woo Hoo!

You can also read about last year’s trip to the beach at Be Spontaneous.