A Day at the Beach

We had to say goodbye to Grandma on Tuesday.  We had a great time with Grandma, and she was such a big help to me and Tom with getting settled into the house.  O definitely misses her, he asks where she is every day (multiple times) and then asks "Is she coming back?".  My attempt last week to explain to him that Grandma was leaving on Tuesday to go back to Pennsylvania and Nan was coming on Friday to see him, has backfired a little.  He is now very confident that Grandma is coming back on Tuesday...

We took O to his new school every day last week for a few hours each day.  He did well.  He says that he likes his new friends, and that his new teachers are fun.  Of course, that did not stop him from crying and making us feel bad at drop off.  On Friday, he was there for the morning, through lunch and nap.  He did very well with it, and when he woke up, Nan and I were there to pick him up.  He was excited to see her!

  Yesterday, Tom spent the day out on ASPEN observing and underway day.  Back on Alameda, we had a busy day.  We went to the farmer's market in the morning, and then took a picnic lunch to the beach.  There was a sand castle and sand sculpture contest yesterday.  They hold it on a day in June when there is a very low tide.  You can see in the picture below, just how far out the tide was.

O was very happy to dig in the sand, but he wanted nothing to do with the wet sand, and would not even put his feet down on it.

 Here is an example of one of the sand sculptures.  There were some very neat sea creatures, sphinxes and alligators too!

Tom and I start work tomorrow - vacation is over.