July 4. What a day. What a day. So good, guys, so good! I’ve been absent, and I’m sorry, and I left my camera charger in MI, so I can’t add pictures yet, but this is how it went:

July 3 — Corelyn and I menu-planned for the 4th, did laundry, grocery-shopped, and prepared salad and veg kabobs and dressing and the coolers. We also went to Target to gather supplies. Not in that order. In fact, we didn’t get to the grocery until 10:30 pm, after a series of unfortunate events, and finished up with the salad and prep work around 12:15, when I promptly went to bed, on account of getting up at 8 am for the 4th.

July 4 — We got up and met on the patio at 9 am, filled the coolers, dumped ice on our burger patties, rum in coke (ingeniously disguised in a 2 liter, we are so smart), our Sam Summer’s, etc. We packed the car with so much stuff it looked like we were going on a week-long road trip.

Items Included:

Six-foot table (to put the food on)
Charcoal grill
Charcoal
Utensils, plates, cups
2 coolers
Frisbees
Football
Chairs
Blankets
Towels
Sunscreen
Change of clothes
Sweatshirt
Lantern
Flashlights
Cards
Hair detangler
Comb
Hair ties
Book
Crossword puzzle
Sunglasses
2 bikes (Jeff, mine)
Helmets, bike locks, bungee cord

I am probably forgetting things. It was marvelous.

Then we rode the 45 minutes to the beach. We got there around 10:45, and promptly said, “efffffffffffff” because the beach was SO crowded. We were hoping to get a fire pit, but clearly this was not going to happen. However, so many people at the beach meant that everyone was grilling, and thus the lifeguards/police didn’t care that we had a charcoal grill on the beach. We proceeded to make 4 trips to and from the car to the beach, arranged our items at our camp set up, and proceeded to lay out. I sunscreened 4 times. I got tan — everyone else is burnt. Jeff is the worst, and it makes me die a little inside.

We played football, drank some rum and coke, worked on the crossword, watched the boys dig a hole, worked more on the crossword, listened to tunes, and went swimming. Well, Andrew and I (Corelyn’s husband) were the only 2 to go into the water and we were in the water for like 40 minutes, and then we saw a seal.

A SEAL IN THE OPEN OCEAN BY US. AT LOW TIDE.

Do you know what seals in the open ocean at low tide mean? Usually? Sharks. Big ones. So we promptly hopped outta the water after Andrew pointed this tidbit out and I said, “Eww, I hate it. Let’s go.”

Anyways, the rest of the day was spent reading, crosswording some more, playing scrabble, and generally having a good time. Then we BBQed into the night, and waited for the sun to go down. The kabobs were delicious, the burgers marvelous, the chips that guests brought scrumptious, and the veggie salad was heavenly. We had visitors coming and going all day, with a total of 12 in all, with 8 of us BBQing at night. When the sun disappeared, we saw fireworks all the way up the coast: Marina Del Ray, Santa Monica, and 2 separate places in Malibu. Beautiful.

We arrived home around 10:30, and by the time we were all showered and clean, with our stuff tossed into corners to be dealt with other days, it was 12, and we all promptly went to bed and slept the morning away, dreaming of the wonderful 11 hour epic beach adventure we had partook in.