No Labor Lost

When my friend Ebba invited us down for a BBQ in Aptos, we thought it sounded quite nice and agreed to go even though the drive would be long. When Ebba then invited us to stay over in their vacation beach rental, we thought it sounded really nice and accepted again. So after packing the car on Saturday, we loaded everyone up and drove down to Aptos. After initially getting lost, we arrived at the house, unloaded everyone, got the girls some food and then headed to the beach. Just a few blocks away, Ebba's husband Francis had been saving a spot all day for the group. We went down to the sand and set up camp. A couple shade tents, blankets, bags, babies. After about 10 minutes, the water came within 10 feet of the set up. I freaked out as I was alone with the babies at that point and went to tell Michael we needed to move the stuff back. He told me to calm down and that we had about 45 minutes. 5 minutes later, it came within 3 feet and I started moving stuff. With random strangers helping me, we moved it all back to a safe location.

The girls got totally disgustingly sandy, Elizabeth eating fistfulls of sand at a time, while Parker ran in and out of the waves screaming with joy the entire time. Parker and I stayed when Michael took the babes back to the house for a nap a couple hours later. When he returned, we played some more, ate, had too many cookies, and then packed it up and headed back to the house.

Everyone was tired so the girls went down fairly easy and Parker followed shortly after (as he had skipped his nap). We watched some Law & Order and then chatted with Ebba and Francis for a bit before we called it a night.

I started the night on the floor, but after forgetting about my bad back, after a few hours I moved Parker to the floor and took the bed. A couple hours later, Parker was tapping me asking me to come up. All was well until 4am when Miranda decided to scream. Which woke up Elizabeth. Which woke up Parker. When a bottle wouldn't stop the screaming, I took Miranda to bed with me, Elizabeth settled down on her own and Michael crept back in bed with Parker. Miranda was quiet and happy. Parker thought it was time to get up. And I was wide awake. I listened to Michael tell Parker it wasn't time to get up yet and I must have drifted off at some point. I woke up to Elizabeth chatting and took them both upstairs so the boys could sleep some more.



Ebba was awake with Allison. Lincoln came next. And then Fiona. We all played for a long time and everyone was in a good spirits.















Lincoln didn't want his picture taken, but I did it anyway. Lincoln liked it when I tickled Elizabeth and tried it himself. Which made me tickle him. Michael and Parker soon woke up so Ebba made us all pancakes, even humoring Parker with some letter pancakes.








When the girls started getting cranky, we packed up, said our thanks and headed off to the Boardwalk. The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is slightly scuzzy amusement park that I used to frequent in college. It's hot and loud and there are too many people.



None the less, here we were. Elizabeth was a good girl and took her nap in the stroller as planned. Miranda...not so much. We then looked around for kiddie rides and found many. In between rides, I had a sno cone, cotton candy and ice cream. Yum.










Parker was a good sport about the lines and really loved the dragon roller coaster.





After all the tickets and children were spent, we headed home. The kids were great in the car and although naps were a bit screwed up today, the girls were in bed at 6:15.

Thanks Ebba for the great time!