Camping on the beach...

Once a month we have "early close Friday" at school. Schools ends at 13:20 instead of 15:00, so everyone gets a nice slightly extended weekend. Many of us at school take advantage of the situation to head to the beach on a Friday instead of Saturday and spend the night. By the time we get there it's about 16:00/16:30- which gives us enough time to set up the tents in the light, and have a swim or a surf. So that is what we did. Then we all dried off, had some drinks, some snacks. Eventually (in the dark- its getting dark these days around 18:30/19:00), we made a fire, cooked dinner on the grill (Joel and I warmed up alfoil wrapped packets of Thanksgiving dinner) and ate in the way you do when you can't really see your plate. :) It was just a little cloudy, so we saw some amazing stars.

I have never slept on a beach before- and I have to say that 1) sand can be really hard and really uncomfortable and 2) the sound of the waves all night is really, really soothing. I told Joel that next time we go we have to spend some time actually making sure that we level out the sand below our tent, because the amount of lumps and bumps digging into me was just not cool. Otherwise though, it was a nice sleep for me.

The best part of spending the night at the beach is, of course, already being at the beach come morning. :) Joel had set his alarm for dawn to see if there were any waves that early. He got up, but there weren't, so we went back to sleep. We ended up getting up around 7 and enjoying the sunshine. Joel eventually got to surfing, although there were very few waves today. I laid around in the sun reading and went for the odd dip in the water. It was lovely. Finally, around 11:30 we set off to home. It's great because now, it's still Saturday afternoon- but we feel like we've already had a full weekend in a way. It really is lovely. :)

Here's some photo evidence...

Early morning chillin on the beach- after our first swim

Can you see the crab? This beach is littered with crabs- when you walk they literally scatter in all directions with every step. You have to make sure you zip your tent at night, cause I've heard stories that they get in otherwise. Also they don't disappear at night- as you walk you can *just* see them- and you just hope that they can see you better than you can see them...

not cute

cute

super cute

contemplative (actually, he's probably thinking- "Can I surf that wave? Are they getting bigger? Maybe they are...I should get out there....")

Crab friend

Mon and Don hanging on the beach- do you like that custom beach chair?

Our camping business on the beach...

In other exciting, but totally unrelated news- there is a new blog! 4 windows is a collaborative project fueled by my soon to be sister in law Mook- but 4 windows isn't just about her- it's about all of us- "us" being Joel and his 3 brothers and the women and children who make up their families. You can find the link to the blog at the top of my "Blogs I like to read" list on the left. We've posted our first post- "the families"- this is who's participating. We'll post pictures once a week- just one picture from each family, from each corner of the world- pictures will fit a theme- and we're guessing that eventually we'll all see that even though we in 4 different corners of the world, our lives don't look that different. Or maybe they do. :)