We went to Cuba, part four

The food was terrible but THE BEACH WAS AMAZING. If I had any advice, it would be to bring something pink to wear or to put your kids in, because of how incredible it looks against the blue. Whether you are shell-hunting.

Or charging into the surf.

Or learning how to brace yourself against it.

It also makes you easy to spot when you are like GONNA CHASE SOME SEAGULLS BYEEEEE.

Most days, the beach was super windy and the waves were EXCITING, but there was one day where it was calm enough to walk way out to the sandbar. Hi guys! Hiiiiiiiiii!

Mom made the girls a blanket fort on the beach, mostly to help Geneva feel safe because even just being where the ocean could look at her was terrifying.

Geneva fell, like, five times a day, and scraped up her knees and then scraped up the scrapes and then she was twirling in the hallway and just twirled into a corner and bruised up her pretty forehead. DID SHE MIND goodness no.

Another family had some of those squirter thingies, and Eleanor used one to fill a bucket while Geneva just dipped hers in the water and then waved it around in the air, saying 'Swerrrrt!'

This is also how she squirted you with a water gun. You ain't swerting nobody, Geneva.

Mom and dad left, everyone was very sad, Eleanor was all, Now I won't have any fun and I was like, Eh, I think ya will.

Playing with a four-year-old in the ocean is fantastic, because they just want to fill a bucket full of water and then dump some sand into it and then stir it around, 'It's turtle soup!' and then dump it out again, and make little piles of 'food' by the tideline so the waves come up and eat it, or maybe they don't! Maybe the waves don't like sand-burgers! Also they are pretty into being mermaids.

I could have played with Eleanor in the ocean for DAYS but Geneva wouldn't let me. BE COOL, GENEVA. (No, it's fine. One day she'll be so cool she won't WANT to sit in my lap for hours at a time, and I will be sad about it because she still smells amazing and her solid little body is very satisfying to hold.)

Anyway. After mom and dad left, we made better friends with the kids with the squirty thingies, and Eleanor and the older girl spent HALF HOURS rinsing and drying and organizing their collection of shells.

Geneva kept luring the younger brother (he was like four) onto the bridge, she'd hunker down so she could peer up under his hat and she'd be like, Bidge? Biiiiiiiidge? Bidge. Bidge? And eventually Joel would take them both to the bridge and I'd lie back in my lounge chair and sun myself.

Geneva was, it has perhaps become clear, pretty needy on this trip. SO MANY NEW STUFFS, new bed, new food, scary water that moves, etc, so she would lug Snuggles around everywhere and once in a while, she'd nip out the door on the way to supper or wherever with him and we'd be all the way out of the building and I'd be like, HEY.

Which is how Snuggles found himself at the beach one day.

Geneva never really got the appeal of the waves, and here she is waving at the waves because she doesn't really understand homophones, either.

And then we flew home, and it was long and we got in at almost 1am and now we're home. Good trip, everyone!