Playing in the Sand

I don’t know why I dread sand. I always loved playing in it when I was a kid. I remember my dad made me a huge sandbox right behind our house that took a whole dumptruck load of sand to fill up. My brother and I played for hours in the sand either playing with trucks and tractors or cooking up a whole array of foods with sand as the primary ingredient.

Now though, I’m responsible to keep things clean, so it has changed my whole perspective on sand. I think it’s the thought of sand in the shoes, sand in the hair, sand in people’s ears, sand in the bedsheets at night, sand in the car, sand everywhere, that I don’t get too excited about. Last week, my sister-in-law decided we should take seven cousins to go play at a beach on the Oregon Coast. It was fun! I enjoyed taking pictures of the kids playing to their hearts content. It was good for the kids too, because they don’t care if there is sand in their hair or in their bed or wherever. They just get to be one with the sand and that’s what matters. (They all did have to take showers that night, because they had sand everywhere, in their hair, in their ears, you name it. I managed to only get it between my toes, but I probably didn’t have as much fun as they did. Although taking pictures is a favorite of mine, so maybe I did.)

Some of the kids dug a deep hole. JD Boy wanted to show how deep the hole was. (You might notice that he has a splint on his left hand. He fractured his hand about a week ago while roller blading.)

Baby just loved throwing the sand. She just scooped up sand and threw it and repeated the process over and over. She was in sand heaven.

She also found it challenging to climb the sand hills. She always was asking me to pick her up and carry her, but instead, I stood there and took pictures of her struggling. She doesn’t look too bad for the struggle. It was good for her.

The older girls enjoyed turning the sand dunes into a gymnasium. They jumped. They whirled. They flipped. They cartwheeled. They loved the soft landing.