The Four-way Tunnel

We’ve been doing all sorts of things on our vacation with family.  Most notably, consuming calories.   Or at least that’s what it feels like I’ve been doing.   There were donuts (three days now) and cinnamon buns.   We had lasagna that was so good I overate to the point of discomfort with a side-effect of looking pregnant to my son.   There were crab legs, lobster, shrimp and fish.   And don’t forget the pancakes.

We also had ice cream and Kona Ice and junk food snacking.   Oh, and beer.   My brother-in-law makes beer and has on tap four of his beers to select from at their tiki bar in the basement.  This year featured a new entry in the beer category, KaiPA.   It’s like an IPA only it was the first batch of beer their son, Kyle, made and KaiPA it was named when the batch turned out to be quite good.

We’ve been on jet skis, taken boat rides, swam in the lagoon, and walked to the beach.   We’ve shopped at the local beach store for beach necessities like sandals and t-shirts for gifts.   And we’ve sat around the house and done a lot of nothing—one of my favorite vacation pastimes.

Today we took the boat and some jet skis to the inlet where the sound meets the ocean.   We anchored the boat and ran the jet skis aground and let the children do that thing they do where the get their entire bodies covered in sand and experience no discomfort at all whatsoever, furthering my theory that children’s nervous systems aren’t fully developed yet.

After eating our lunch of hoagies and chips some of us sat on the boat and talked.  Others got out and walked on the beach.   As I looked over a few minutes later I saw my two children, their cousin Kyle (ala KaiPA) and his girlfriend Madison doing something in the sand.   Kyle and Madison were working deliberately while my children dug furiously.    I yelled out, asking what was up?

My husband said, “they’re building a tunnel.”   But this was no single path tunnel.   They were at ninety degrees from each other and were trying to make a four-way tunnel meet in the middle.     Digging went on for a bit and then suddenly I heard cries out from the beach.    They’d made it.   They had completed a sand intersection underground.    And they were happy about it.

I don’t know how long the sand tunnels lasted, possibly not long because another thing children excel at  is trouncing on or destroying something once it’s completed.   No one seemed upset though as we called out to get back on the boat, we were heading home.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is apparently much like his cousin, Kyle in many ways.   As we headed back to the house after our afternoon at the inlet my son pulled a towel over his body, curled up and fell asleep.   Kyle did this when he was a child too.   My son was still asleep a half-hour after we got back, not waking even as the engines were revved up and cleaned out once docked (not a quiet process).

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had run into something for the second bad time yesterday.   My husband had her in his lap making sure she was okay when she said to him, “today is a bad day”.   Meaning she was hurting herself more than usual.    I think today has been a good day though.