Beach Day

I feel like 4th of July day is starting to become beach day for us here in Holland. This time we went to a different beach than the one we usually go to. This one was at Saugatuck Dunes State Park, south of Holland. Ryan's friend, Rachel, invited us to go with her family. While we were there, we met her husband's parents and siblings.

Her mother-in-law, Carol, was very friendly and talked to us a lot about the missionary work her parents did in their lives and asked questions about Ryan's mission and how our church does missionary work.

Ryan, right after board sledding into the water.

To get out to our spot on the beach, we ended up hiking maybe 25 or 30 minutes. It felt like that anyway. I typically love hiking, but at five and half months pregnant, I was struggling a little bit.

Ryan and Jared playing aimlessly in the sand.

Karl stayed with me and was about as slow as me, up until Ryan took him on his shoulders and carried him (and Emmaline in the carrier) almost all the rest of the way. I don't know how he does that, but it impresses me every time!

At the beach, the kids were excited at first to see Rachel and Chris and play in the water. But, after a while they just wanted to sit and eat their snacks and treats. That's all I wanted to do after all that hiking.

Ryan eating a bag of Doritos out in the water.

 Chris and his brothers and sister had a water board he had found and were taking turns walking really high up a hill behind us, and sliding down into the water. The hill was fairly steep, so it was a pretty fast slide down and some people went pretty far out into the water. It looked like a lot of fun.

After a while, Ryan took a turn to do it. We also watched Rachel do it a couple times, which was hilarious. She didn't want to get wet any more, so she would put her toes down to stop herself when she'd get near the water and skid to a stop in the sand.

Emmaline loves the water. She kept coming over to me and giving me her hands, so I could swing her around in the water. She's so cute when she's having so much fun.

 Ryan made sure the boys were taken out into the water a couple times while we were there, and had them practice some swimming a little bit.

He also made sure to take me out into the water and dunk me a couple times. I of course attempted to dunk him. He wanted to swim out pretty far, but I had to go back because it was too cold going out further.

When we were ready to head back to the cars, Ryan took the kids and kept at his usual pace. It's easier for him to take a big load if he doesn't have to do it slowly. So, I couldn't keep up with him, but Carol was nice to walk with me and make sure I didn't get lost on the trails.

She was great company, so it made the walk seem like it didn't take as long.

On the way home, our sandy, sleepy kids took some naps. We stopped at Checker's on the way to get some food. Then we went home to get cleaned up, eat, and relax a little after our fun, active day.