It was a great holiday to spend together and with our local cousins.
We woke up and headed to the beach to enjoy the peaceful morning. We knew the cousins were meeting us there a little later. This beach is off the main road in town and is usually quite popular...but not at 9:30am in the morning. We nearly had the entire place to ourselves.
The sky was grey and overcast, and we hoped not to get rained on. Tamlin immediately shed his shoes and ran down to the water. He splashed right in and tried to scare the geese resting on the rocks.
Jude was more cautious. He went near the water, but changed his mind about getting wet.
Brian brought the beach chairs for us. He relaxed into one and read a book. I watched the boys and soaked up the peace of being on the beach with my family.
Tam has no fear of the water, and remembers some of his swim lessons. He loved splashing around and throwing rocks.
Jude had fun pushing a big truck through the sand, and then digging and filling the buckets. He eventually got his feet a little wet with the water, but mostly kept up the beach on the sand. A little later, another family arrived with a three year old boy. The two tykes hit it off and had a blast building (and destroying) sand castles.
Eventually the rest of the family arrived. These were my cousins, Ed and Dori, ...two of their daughters (my second cousins) Becky and Sarah...and their husbands and kids (my third cousins). I couldn't quite figure out how my boys are related to the other little ones...so we just settled on calling everyone cousin. They brought sweetrolls to share while the kids all ran into the water. Us adults all sat around catching up and getting to know everyone.
Even though there was a pack of boys, Tamlin hit it off with Katie, who I think just turned four. These two played very well with each other the entire time.
Watching all the kids play on the beach and in the lake totally brought back memories of my childhood. We all played in Lake Erie too at Lake Shore Park when we were small :-)
After brunch at the beach, we headed home to change to dry clothes and gather up food for a late lunch at Ed and Dori's house. They live down the road about 20minutes from us. Ed grilled chicken and everyone pitched in with sides and deserts. We brought down applesauce cake...made from the Reinhart recipe and applesauce canned by our neighbors. We also brought chocolate mint cookies 'cause Silvieus' love cookies. And then we brought a pasta salad too to balance all the sweets (this was made by Brian).
I remember visiting their home when I was little and it seemed as if very few things had changed. There is still a beautiful garden; the house still looks down a slope to a river; and they still have their pool. However, now there is a swingset or two and a frog pond.
We arrived after the rest had already settled in, with many of the kids in the pool or off running around. Tamlin saw Katie in the pool and wanted to swim too. Now, I don't trust Tam to swim completely without an aid yet...so he had arm floats or a tube or both all the time. Jude was only a little interested in the pool so I decided to suit up and take him in for a bit. Well, Jude cycled between crying and laughing for the 15minutes he was in my arms in the water. Yep, we'll have to get him some swim lessons when we can.
Tamlin, however, loved the water and playing with the cousins. With only a little persuasion, Tamlin jumped off the deck into the water. He was in and out of the pool the rest of the day!
Katie and him even swam in the rain!
Dinner was great...left-overs were great...deserts were great...conversations were great...even the little bursts of rain didn't damper the party too much.
It was a great day and I absolutely loved spending it with family.
