Sand Castle Contest

 It is a beautiful June day...and our little town is having a huge festival this weekend. Really...it is like a three day long party!  They close main street and invite in a ton of vendors as well as local folks raising money.  There are pageants, contests, parades, and fireworks :-)


This morning at 9am was the sand castle contest on the main beach.  Apparently this contest has been held for the past 20 years and sounded like it would be a ton of fun for our little family to participate in.  Jude had received a big bag of beach paraphernalia for his birthday (From the aunts I think), so we had plenty of buckets and shovels.

When we got to the beach, did we have a plan?
Nope.
The rules were simple:  build a sand castle using the usual buckets and shovels and any natural objects found on the beach.  We entered in the preschool category with our two little ones and called ourselves Team Dragon, having played wizards and dragons at the water park this week.





I asked Tamlin what he wanted to build...
Tam "Build a castle. . . and a dragon"
Ok.
Hmmm...

Brian went to work on the castle.
The boys began by hauling water up and finding rocks and sticks.
I thought about how to make a dragon out of sand.
We mounded up the sand and made the vague dragon shape blob-like body.
But what about wings?
Tam came back with sticks...brilliant!  Stick wings!
Jude helped with decorating the dragon with rocks and sticks.

Dragon was looking good but something was missing.
Tamlin asked where his tail was...a tail!
We worked on sculpting a tail that swept around. Of course it had spikes all over it.
Tiny white shells became the dragon's teeth.  Tam decided on two black walnuts for the eyes.  Jude helped stick the sticks around for a throat fringe.


The boys went back and forth between helping Brian with the castle and helping me with the dragon.
They added sticks and rocks to the castles to make doors and decorations.  Tamlin added a cool warped wood piece as the wizard on the top of the tower defending the castle from the attacking dragon.


But the castle needed something too... and the boys were tired of finding rocks...



We need a moat!

Dig, boys, dig!

We then lined the moat with small rock and shell debris so that it looked like water.

Here's our finished castle and moat.  The dragon is just to the left of the photo...

swooping in toward the tower outside the moat.

 And Here's our Dragon flying in for an attack!

We waiting and played while the entries were judged...maybe 15 groups total.  There were other cool castles, a sand sunflower, a great looking fish, a giant flag, and even a living sand-mermaid!


 Everyone got ribbons for participating.
And we WON for our category!
Yeah!
Tam was so excited to get a ribbon AND a trophy!

Jude buried his ribbon in the sand :-)




As a family, this was an awesome morning.  I loved that we were able to do something fun all together...with no fighting or tears or pouting.  Both kiddos really got into the event and had a blast.
Can't wait to try again next year... Brian is already thinking of doing a city-scape with Jude dressed up as Godzilla!

Vacation at Wolf Lodge... What a Blast!

 We spent 2 nights and 2 days at the Great Wolf Lodge nearby...along with my sister's family and my mom and Dale.  Mom had found a great deal last November for this little vacation and snapped it up.  Thank you so much for this awesome adventure, mom!





The hotel has a huge indoor water park that holds pools, waterfalls, hot tub, lazy river, and lots of water slides. We jumped right into the water shortly after arriving on Monday night...then again on Tuesday morning, Tuesday night, and even Wednesday morning before leaving.  I am pretty sure we all were a little waterlogged by the end :-)

 

 I was little worried that Jude wouldn't have much to do or would be scared to try any of the waterslides...  but...

No problem for our littlest man!




Tamlin was just so excited to be playing in the water, riding slides, and hanging out with his cousin.
He went down all the slides...repeatedly!  He really liked sliding down the biggest raft slide (I think it was 5 stories high and wound outside and back into the water park.

 

I liked seeing the kiddos get soaked with water under the waterfalls and the huge spray of water from the tipping bucket located on the top of the tower.  And, I'll admit,  I loved the water slides too.

 

Besides swimming and soaking, there was other fun activities to do at the lodge.
The kids all got wands, became wizards, and went on quests searching for interactive objects found throughout the lobbies. Tamlin and I really got into this, especially when everyone else was taking an afternoon nap.  Tam had a good eye for finding the right objects based on the clues (must be from reading all those I Spy books).

The kiddos also got to choose and stuff soft animals.  And then later, they got glitter tattoos.

 

 
By the end of the stay, the kids were exhausted, but oh so happy!  I will happily admit that I think it was better than Cedar Point because it was fun all in a contained area (so way less walking).  However, Cedar Point in another couple of years, for sure.

Thank you!
And let's do it again soon!