FAMILY BEACH 101

Earlier today my family and I went to the beach for the first time in San Diego. Here's what I learned about family beach trips.

1. SPRAY SUNSCREEN ONLY WORKS WHERE YOU SPRAY IT. Our kids now look like a cross between an leopard and candy cane. This is a big one in my family because if it were up to my wife, when God wrote Leviticus, right after disobeying your parents, another sin due the penalty of death would have been failing to adequately apply sun screen.

2. WHEN THE LIFEGUARD SAYS, YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE. GIVE THEM YOUR ATTENTION. So I was building a sand castle with my kids and two other kids of a friend of ours- so do the math. Me and 5 boys under the age of 8- who by the way are all asleep in a tent in my backyard. Or at least they are supposed to be asleep. Jake maybe at the neighbors now that I think of it. Anyway- we were building a sand castle, and my youngest son, Jake, well he wandered off and I missed it. Yeah. I'm the idiot Dad. Well, next thing I know I hear the Lifeguard Suburu truck thing say, "your attention please. If anyone is missing a two year old boy named Jake, please come to the Lifeguard truck." Yeah, so my wife went running after we got eye contact and figured out neither of us had a two year old named Jake in our midst. Boy I wished it were my head lights were left on and not my son was in the passenger seat. I could at least live with that. Anyway- when I asked Jake what he did- he said that he went to another Mommy and Daddy and said- "can you help me find my Mommy?". He wasn't even rocked. The life guard asked him how old he was and his name and he said, "I Jake. I two." God is good. Who knew that asking Jake how old he was to tease him every once in a while would ever help him out. I'm still an idiot.

3. SOME PEOPLE TAKE SAND CASTLES TO AN ART FORM. Yeah, the guy next to us built a sand castle using tools designed for carving and cement work. It looked like a master piece. Silly me thought plastic buckets, shovels, and wagons were enough. Next time I'm bringing my Dewalt 18 volt power tools and showin the guy up.

4. GET CLOSE TO THE WATER. NO CLOSER THAN THAT. Yeah, so we arrived early and were the closest one's to the water. Yeah- not so much. Like 3 rows of nomads showed up after us and pitched tents and strollers and coolers and pretty much anything you can imagine between us and the water. Yeah, by noon if you wanted to find us, our base camp was in the middle of a half naked refuge camp. Maybe that's why Jake had the mobile white courtesy PA system help.

yeah.... so that's it. Live and learn. I'm gonna go print this posting and laminate it so I can read it before we take the kids back to the land of sand, water, sun, and mayhem. peace.