Hey! That shark jacked my floatie!

Today started off a wee bit later than most days. And this time it was all my fault. We decided last night that I should make an egg casserole for breakfast. Unfortunately despite the noblest of efforts I didn't get started on it until after 11:00. Which meant "breakfast" was served after noon today.

After breakfast, errands were run, and that left the teens with the video-heavy downtime again.

Some opted to play air hockey in the garage which made for a nice change of pace, but for the most part it was the same morning we have been having since they got here.

Once the car was loaded with supplies for the day we headed out to our first stop, Costco. It was near 3:00 when we finally left the house!

The group paired off and wandered a bit in the store. Issa and Marissa took full advantage of the free sample tables while Nick and Anissum checked out the video games. Kiana and I stayed on course with the purchase of blueberries and pineapple to take with us to the beach. When Kiana's cart was intercepted by Anissum and Nick they officially lost their cart-driving privileges. There are far too many people in Costco on a Sunday afternoon to let those young men drive it like it's a skateboard.

We were sad to see that Costco didn't stock cheap inner-tubes and we ended up making a second stop, before the beach, at a Longs Drug Store.

Each of them got to choose between a floatie-noodle, a tube, a mat, or a kickboard. Amongst the eight of them there was a good variety.

Folsom Lake this year is pretty low. There's all sorts of stories about it but I won't bore you with those specific details. The point is, it's low. And what was a nice 5 minute, casual walk, from picnic benches to water is now a 10 minute hike up a hill (well up on the return).

After I saw this trek completed about a dozen times, I took it upon myself to a car shuttle a couple of times. Eventually though, I too joined them in the water.

I don't know what it is about water but everytime I have ever been in the water with people under the age of 16, someone inevitably becomes a shark.

This day was no exception. The pink mat, and whomever was riding it at the time, was a girl shark and the blue mat contained a boy shark. I asked why a shark would want to float so high in the water and it was explained to me that you couldn't tell their genders apart if they were under the water. *pause* This seemed a good enough explanation for me.

I contently sat in my inner tube floating around in slow circles until the cute little darlings that they are decided to gang up on me and flip me off my tube. My tube was then stolen by one of them and I contented myself with floating on a noodle for a while.

The dunking of the aunt/teacher led the way to make more dunkings. My favorite occurred when Patrick swam up to a pink-mat-riding Sabrina and threw her off. He then climbed on the mat himself and stroked off in record speed. Sabrina turned to me and delivered the the title for today's blog.

It was a tough choice for these water-lovers but the morning promise of lazertag eventually got them out of the water. My dad came down with the van and Nicole and I piled in for the first ride up while Issa, Nick, Marissa, Kiana and Sabrina opted for the second ride.

Things did not quite go as planned though because on the way off the beach and over to our picnic area we got the van buried in the soft sand. The tires, specifically the right front tire, spun like it was born in Indiana. The sand around us turned black. I found a log and my dad and I tried to create enough traction to get the van back to a more solid section of beach. On the second failed attempt at this a couple stopped us. They spoke with well seasoned experience and we all got to work on digging out the van with bark, oars, and my flipflops. When just about all the digging was done, three more vehicles stopped to help. It was a large group of men and woman in their 30s who spoke in Spanish to each other but in pretty good English to us. They suggested we move forward rather than backwards which led to another several minutes of digging. Eventually with the help of a dozen or so men pushing from behind we were able to get the van up and out of the soft sand.

Back at the water the group of five had given up on us and began the walk up the hill with dampened spirits for having been "forgotten". *Insert pouts and sad music*

As an apology we offered up the uneaten apple pie and watermelon when we got back home.

With the delay in digging out the van, we ended up not getting home until about 8:45. I was covered with dirt and sand and was nowhere near ready to go out for lazertag at that point. I looked online and found that lazertag closes on Sundays at 9:00. I told the crew sorrowfully and promised to come up with something else while I take my shower.
Bowling was suggested but I didn't like the idea of eleven of us all on one lane, etc. So I offered up mini-golf at Scandia and everyone seemed up for it. Well Issa was reluctant but the pleads of her friends helped convince her to come along.


As it turns out experience is quite helpful with minigolf as my three nieces and I took the first four places with our mingolf scores. Even with the lost balls and high scores everyone seemed to really enjoy the golfing. It was, after all, 11:00pm to midnight for this golf game. It's possible that doing anything outside near midnight would be highly enjoyable with this crew. Nick and Patrick cut out of golf after the ninth hole and went inside to play video games.
Tomorrow we head out on our first long-ish road trip. My mom is pretty antsy with it and is insisting on an early bedtime for all. Being a few year removed from bedtime I find myself the only one awake at 1:59am and I post this blog of the day's events.