Afternoon on the Beach

As I mentioned yesterday, as soon as the last of the surprise guests arrived, Jennifer and I headed off to a spa appointment, which was great – it was nice to spend some girl time together.  She’s basically my sister (except we happen to have different parents), but haven’t been able to spend much time together.  We’ve lived far away from each other since going to college in different parts of the country, although now that we’ve moved to Oregon, we’re the closest we’ve been in 12 years!  I hope we’ll be able to see each other more…

After a wonderfully relaxing massage, we picked up some crepes for lunch and met up with everyone else back at our motel, and hung out while a game of Carcassonne finished up – then decided to spend the rest of the afternoon on the beach, while the weather was nice(ish).  (It was cloudier than the previous day, but warm.)

John had a football and a frisbee, which the guys spent some time tossing around, and Neil had brought his kite.  It’s a fancy two-handled one that he could control amazingly well, twisting it around on itself, making it swoop and dip and recovering it even after it seemed hopeless to keep it from crashing into the sand.

He had a little fun buzzing Maxwell, who was confused but excited – I think if he’d been able to identify what was flying around him, he’d have taken off running after it, but he never quite figured out what the kite was.

He kindly offered everyone who wanted to give it a shot a brief lesson and full permission to try (and fail) at flying it.

He was perfectly OK with us novice flyers slamming it nose first into the sand – and thank goodness, because that’s what I was most capable of doing with it.  (It is quite fun, though, and I can see it becoming much easier with practice…  if John and I go to the beach more frequently, I think we may have to get one.)

SOME people decided that they could not possible visit the ocean without going swimming in it….

I think that the rest of us considered this insanity – but after a little jogging warm up and a mini pep rally, they were ready.

Note the woman in the background, ensconced in a puffy insulated jacket, watching in horror as they begin their dash in:

That’s about how I felt, too.  I personally wasn’t wearing a coat, but I did have wool socks and my waterproof hiking boots on.

And to prove they really did it, here’s a super-cropped shot of the full craziness.  See those two dark heads?

After just a few moments of swimming, we headed back inside, for warm showers for some of us, and relaxing and chatting for the rest.  The evening was casual and nice – those of us who went to my high school reminisced and told stories, while the rest watched basketball and napped.  Later we ordered in pizza from across the street, at which point we learned that not everyone can spell “John.”

After dinner we walked down the main street for ice cream cones and frozen chocolate-covered bananas; later, we all played a game of “What’s Yours?”  If you haven’t played, it’s a parlor game in which one person tries to figure out something (pre-chosen) that’s common to the rest of the players by going around the room asking each person “what’s yours?,” and piecing their answers together into some sort of cohesive idea.  My favorite thing about the game is that it’s engaging for all the players, not only the one who’s guessing – even when it’s not your turn, you have to think about what your next clue will be, and it’s fun to try to decipher the other players’ clues and how they relate to the common theme.

For my turn as the guesser, they chose “your memory of the first time you met Julianne” (or something like it – I don’t remember the wording exactly).  It was a really nice idea, and fun for me to remember how and where each of these people came into my life – it was a great way to end a wonderful day.