We went to the beach

I tried to think of a snappy title, but all I could come up with was "Beachy Keen" and I just could not do that. We somehow managed to go all last summer without a single trip to the beach, and I am determined not to repeat that this year. We went Saturday, planning to go marvel at the sand sculpture competition, but got there and realized most of Houston and Galveston and possibly parts of southwest Louisiana had the same idea, so we just found a spot on the seawall in the opposite direction and let the kids splash and dig and boogie board for a few hours. Also, being the good little vegan that she is, Helena enjoyed some fresh seaweed:

Harper went out pretty far and rode the boogie board in on some gigantic swells measuring about 1 foot high. We started swimming lessons yesterday which I'm hopeful will make that very uncomfortable-looking life jacket non-essential on our next trip.

I remembered the days when Hudson was so afraid of water and, in particular, the kind that came at him in unstoppable waves. That tiny, timid (but oh, so CUTE) fellow is long gone:

His tough guy face showed up again today at the little playground at the swimming place. There were two other four year old boys and they were staking claim to one of the slides or something, and Harper got offended and instead of handling it herself, she said to Hudson, who was standing nearby, "Hudson, GET THEM!" and the most extraordinary thing happened. The brother literally SNAPPED to attention, his face did this wincing squinting blinking thing that was either menacing or terrified (or, perhaps, an equal measure of both) and he struck this Intimidating Pose with his hands in some sort of karate pose. I wanted to laugh AND cry because it was so sweet and disturbing. Thankfully, the boys decided to relinquish the slide and Hudson didn't have to actually DO anything.

Helena was just singing along with "Old McDonald" and the lyrics she came up with were, "Old Banana have a farm, E-U-Grover-Oh!" So close.