Boogie boarding and body surfing, Hoboken Style!!

Ok, so we're not in New Jersey... I guess all the cake boss is going to my head. :-)

Today started out very rainy and stormy - the first really set in storm we've had. I love a good storm at the beach... The thunder, the waves, the wind (as long as I'm safely inside). We took advantage of the rainy morning.. Reading, relaxing and playing games. Matthew worked on his book report some more, and we worked on two crosswords on the iPad.

Sometime after one, we stuck our heads out to check the clouds. It looked a little lighter out... A few people were enjoying the waves and it wasn't raining. We decided to go for a walk and see if anything cool had washed up. We found a few good shells and then shockingly, a dead baby sea turtle. The walk was awesome though, and we were inspired to change into our bathing suites and enjoy the awesome waves. They were beaconing to us. Poor Jeff had burned his hand on a coffee cup handle at breakfast (melting butter in the microwave) and was keeping ice on his fingers...he wasn't able to enjoy the fun, but he did sit on the beach with us.  Oh MY - it was AWESOME!!!  The best ever since we've been coming to Florida beaches.  My kids totally floored me!!  They got tumbled, dunked, washed ashore... And they kept coming back for more. Matthew on the tube and Maddie on the boogie board. Matthew even learned how to get himself into the tube yesterday.  Jeff was helping him in, and he said "here, I'll teach you how to get in. Or do you just want me to help you?"  Matthew: "No, I want to learn."  And he didn't give up!!  Even today, I watched him time and time again: lift himself into the tube, ride the waves until he either got dumped or washed to shore, walk back out and start again. Over and over again. Maddie did the same on the boogie board - she never got outdone by the roughness. Matthew even conceded: "you're right!  Maddie is pretty brave!  There are many 10 year olds that wouldn't boogie board, especially in waves like this.  We stayed out for a couple hours... I caught some great waves myself.

We went to shower and clean up... And cook dinner. Jeff grilled chicken, and we ate the rest of the baked beans, cucumbers and peppers.

While we were waiting on the chicken, I started teaching the kids hiw to play backgammon. I had told Maddie I'd teach her to play backgammon sometime, and she asked me if we could do it today. To my surprise, Matthew said, "yes, I'd like to learn to."  We did play for a few minutes, and then we ate. Of course after that we watched cake boss and ate icecream. :-)

We tucked the kids in with the excitement of a surprise excursion looming. We are waking them up early in the morning - hitting the road at 6:30.