Today was a sleeping-in-slow-moving-beachy-kinda day. We didn’t manage to do anything other than eat until noon, and finally left the house and made it onto the beach around the crack-of-2pm. And while normally this would have been a complete waste of a vacation day, today it was just about perfect!

There was an unusually large crowd of older folks and folks with telephoto lens camera set up on the seawall when we arrived. As we got closer, we saw why. Huge wooden sailing ships dotted the ocean. After a little internet sleuthing, we discovered that today is the start of the “Tall Ships Challenge.” It’s a sailing regatta-style festival for antique ships. We tried to imagine crossing the ocean in these ships on a calm day, much less during storms 😬

These two again played their wrestle/catch style game in the ocean, and then convinced Mike to play (with the condition that they play near the edge of the water). I didn’t quite understand the rules, but they had a blast playing.

We ventured out on the jetty so boys could see what the fuss was about… apparently it was very Zen 🤣

Mike and I didn’t go to the end but we still snapped a few good pictures

We headed back and the ball-toss game restarted for a while, then switched to boogie boards, by then the boys were hungry (again) so we walked back to our little house.

We made a quick trip to Walmart for a couple of things for dinner tonight, but more importantly, we went for a new cooler to ship all of our fish from yesterday back home. The plan is to ship it overnight by Fed Ex, so it should arrive home about the time we do tomorrow. We thawed enough to fry for dinner tonight with rice pilaf and sautéed veggies, and it was outstanding! We had zero leftovers. Apparently, we were all hungry for home-cooking.

It was Leo’s night to pick the board game and he choose Apples to Apples. Clearly there were some disagreements about the judges’ ruling but we had so much fun and laughed at each other until our stomachs hurt. It is so fun seeing just how funny the boys are becoming. This has been my favorite part of vacation ♥️

Tonight was our last night with a 13 year old in the house, because tomorrow Leo turns 14! 🥳🥳🥳 We’ve got the birthday signs hung and a couple of fun things planned for his big day and our last full day of this trip.