The Beaches Beach

Smallest came in to us at 4:30am having had a nightmare about a programme that Small and he watched. He wanted to sleep between us and so he stayed with us for a while. It was a hot night and he was very warm and took up a lot of room. Eventually he asked to go back to his room and I escorted him there gratefully, climbed back into my roomy side of bed and fell asleep.

This morning after breakfast, which the boys made,

.........and a getting together of all things beachy plus a picnic, we drove to swimming lessons. I caught Smallest on camera doing some dives.

After a hour of lessons we drove to Toronto to The Beach/Beaches. Apparently if you don't come from there you call it The Beaches and if you do, you call it The Beach. So whatever, despite numerous construction barriers and a detour which sent us in a circle, we made it to a free car park (only because the car park attendant was AWOL and a passing policeman (well I say passing, he was actually riding round in circles on a bicycle) said it was probably free as there was no-one to pay. He also told us how to get to where we wanted to go to and told us to have a nice day.

We only crossed a road and we were on the boardwalk, next to the huge beach. There was a lot of room even though there were many people there. We headed straight for the water and set ourselves down on our picnic rugs.

As soon as we had eaten, Smallest was straight into the water, not swimming but one shoulder went in. Moo paddled. Small went in to his knees. I watched. We read for a bit. The boys built a castle and a hole. Small used his cap as a bucket.

Then we walked along the boardwalk to the park where Moo and I sat and watched the boys play while we drank our coffee out of mugs (no plastic or polystyrene for us!).

We walked up to the main road and got ourselves an ice cream from Marble Slab Creamery. We had only had one of these once a while back. One cone, two scoops of ice cream and a mix-in, all mixed together. Phew we only had a small one and it was huge.

We walked through Kew Gardens and the boys scooted along the paths. We noticed at swimming today that whenever the swimming lady asks Smallest which hand is left he always looks at his hand and then tells her. He has two freckles on his left hand which he says looks like Potato Man therefore he knows this is his left and the other has one freckle which he calls pirate potato man, he knows this is his right! Strange boy. Anyway, we were calling directions to him:- pirate, potato and belly button for straight on, god knows what people must have thought!

We saw some kites flying and decided to check it out and flopped onto the beach near them. We were also near the life guard station where we watched them doing their exercises. The boys were throwing stones at the bank trying to make it fall and Smallest ended up in the water again - he just can't keep away.

It started to get a little cool so we walked and scooted along the boardwalk back to the car with the intention of going home but by the time we got to the other end of the beach, the sun was out and it was lovely. So I searched for food and the others went on the beach near the water. The only thing I could find was hot dogs, so the boys had them while Moo and I ate some biscuits and people-watched. Boy were there people to watch too!

Coffee? HobNob?

Left: Small built a 'SandMan' but Smallest wouldn't get out of it.

Right: Moo being 'raccooned'

Many many many games of volleyball all at the same time.

We stayed there until 7:30pm, walked to the car and drove home. The traffic wasn't too bad and we got home in good time. The boys went straight to bed (9pm by then!).

Huffle was out playing golf and didn't get back in till 9:45. Dirty stop out.

 

We walked a lot today. It was a great day and as I tucked Small up he thanked me for a lovely day out. Ahhh nice.

 

Please don't use my photos without asking first. Posted with Blogsy