Girl Scallops at the beach

Olivia and I had our first girl scallop camping trip. To a beach house! Come on, this is Florida after all. None of us really knew what to expect other than the Girl Scallop troops in north Florida have access to a beach house near Jacksonville. Turns out that it is a building in the middle of a city park a couple blocks from the beach. We don't know the history but I'm guessing that someone donated the property to the city with a request that the building be used for Girl Scallops.
Now, we all have an idea of what a beach house is and I'm sure this one doesn't fit the bill for most of those ideas, and while it has cement floors and one sleeping room for all of us to share, it sure was a lot easier than doing the tent thing with 10 or so six yr old girls. And it has a shower. And AC.

Okay, so maybe this really wasn't a camping trip after all.

At the meeting prior, we prepped by making beach buckets. Upon arrival, we ordered out pizza - no "poor boys" for these "campers."We really didn't have any structured activities - just lots of fun at the beach - which really is what this troop (and moms) needed. It was a great bonding, getting-to-know-you type of trip. Especially when we broke out the wine after the girl scallops hit the hay.

Thalia and Olivia...Amanda found a few live LARGE snails, which in all my years at the beach, I've never seen...Yes, that is my girl scallop way out there, giving all the other girl scallop moms heart attacks...A dried up girl scallop...Arts and crafts...At least five stories later, the girls went to bed. And the moms broke out the wine. Wish I had pics of that.The next morning we took one last stroll to the beach before leaving. Sushi for breakfast anyone?
And if you are wondering why "Girl Scallops" - that is Grant's translation for Girl Scouts. And I absolutely adore it.

Along with kajamas instead of pajamas.

Beachin' it

In addition to tubing, we had yet to go to Crescent Beach since moving to Gainesville. It is just south of St. Augustine and only about 1.5 hrs from home. We didn't park in the main public lots so we felt like we had the beach to ourselves. The only problem with this is that there is no bathroom and two minutes after we realized it, the kids needed to use one. However, the hour walk on the beach (round trip) to the nearest one was the highlight of the day. We discovered all kinds of things and the kids even rescued some suffocating juvenile permit (a species of fish) that someone had left in a sand bucket.
The kids had fun kicking around the sea foam blobs...
Grant and I played "King of the Sand Hill" while waiting for the bathroom breakers...
Olivia loves to explore and touch everything we find...
Grant does not. No amount of convincing could get him to hold a crab molt...
He is much happier playing in the sand and building 16 castles...
Our white trash umbrella. We didn't realize it had disintegrated until we put it up.