still playing and pier trip too

Having ice cream on the porch and look who tried himself a selfie — Luke — well not exactly, Luke was busy putting chocolate, vanilla ice-cream on exposed body parts of himself and nearby others— that would be me.   That's alright - needed a shower anyway.  And Luke got to see the picture right away.

Card playing during the heat of the day.  Isaac is learning 500 Rummy, the girls keep score.  Carefully.

"cooking various pies and cakes on the porch in the afternoon.  Note the moisture on the deck.  Yeah they have run the hose.  We have spent a good deal of time working on who gets to play with the hose.  A fuse waiting to happen.  The working end of the hose is just too temping a device in the hands of a small child - (or unweildly) according to every statement I heard.  (that's basically what the message was they were trying to get across.)

We continued playing in the surf and on shore.  

Below Isaac demonstrates prime form in "wave jumping" 

and here in "running from the wave"

both are great games

now sitting in the low tide shallows and riplets is an art form and Patt and Luke are really good at it.  (Luke is not overly fond of the ocean, but is fond of his grandmama.)

He worries about his boat and this is about as far away from his grip as it gets when not in contained water - like one of our engineered "lakes" or tidal pools.  He keeps his eye out for THE — BIG  —
ONE  meaning wave.

After dinner yesterday we went for a short drive up to Ocean Crest Pier.  A treat in and of itself, and the pier trip was compounded by some very nice people who shared their fishing poles with the kids who reeled in and touched small sharks.

Laura has walked these piers before — back when they were a bit more rickety than they are now and back when we had one closer to the house.

Sad note there used to be something called The Long Beach Pier - North Carolina's longest. Several years ago it was torn down. The cheap gift shop, bit of a grocery store, restaurant /bar /night club, and fishing hot spot ( I guess) was an institution that should have been preserved. It was not and I miss it.  It was an even mile from our beach house.  A nice walk, or marker for running or whatever.

Nevertheless, Ocean Crest Pier is still nice and we all got to catch fish, see and walk on an outer banks pier, be far from the shore and make new friends.

and pose for a grandchild grandparent photo — (we were not the only set of grandparents out there doing this either).  It is a nice place to take kids.  and take yourself.

 Oh and one more thing.  at the beach house— we even have most every night something called  boys night for clean - up Matt this afternoon had some good "hope you" from Luke.  I might add from my point of view it seems as if boys night clean up comes very often.  Of course boys cooking day does not come often - and we do eat well.