On the beach

Friday morning. The sun is out, the sky is blue, it's beautiful, put on your shoes!

Jeremiah awoke to a gentle tugging on his hand by Kate. He slowly opened one eye to see her smiling face. "Get up!" she demanded "you're starving!". How did she know? I don't know about Jeremiah but I was certainly starving. We knew the Miami Druekes were excited at the prospect of sleeping in on a weekday (they all played hooky to hang out with us), so rather than start calling them at 7:20AM, we got dressed and headed to Gilberts. We had not yet acquired the new umbrella stroller we so desperately needed, so we took turns carrying Sarah and encouraging Kate to move it along. Before we left the bakery, the woman behind the counter gave Kate & Sarah each a tiny strawberry shortcake parfait. The treat had been chilled with the spoon in, so when I tried to remove Sarah's spoon for her, the whole thing came out like a popsicle. I thought that was perfectly fine and handed it to her. It was fine, of course, except that she rode on my shoulders the whole way back to the hotel. Upon our return, I smelled like a strawberry shortcake doll, with the scented (and very sticky) hair. No time to wash it, we were headed to the beach!

We thought the girls would have little appreciation for the people-watching on South Beach, so we headed to Crandon beach on Key-Biscayne. The park and the beach are beautiful. It was cool and extremely windy but we didn't care. Everyone in their bathing suits headed to the water's edge to stick a toe in and...jellyfish as far as the eye could see lay in wait on the shore. They lay there, innocently looking like litter.

No matter! We could tiptoe around them easily enough. The water was freezing. So, Grandpa Drueke, obviously with his finger on the pulse of the 3-year-old set, began to dig a big hole in the sand. Aside from breakfast cereal and movies, this is Kate's favorite thing ever. Her day at the beach mostly involved dancing around and lying in the hole.

Sarah loved the sand. So much so that she kept putting her entire face in it. That, and she enjoyed throwing it at all of us. She'll be the one tormenting the 98-pound weaklings on the beach soon enough. When it was time to leave the beach (because we were hungry and wanted beer) Everyone enjoyed shaking the sands off the towels in the ferocious winds.

Once we'd packed up and paused to get the wet sand that was caked into the crotch of Sarah's bathing suit, we hit Scotty's. Our favorite little restaurant/bar on the water in Coconut Grove, by the city hall. They have fantastic conch fritters and a mighty fine dolphin sandwich. Yum. Day well spent.