I’ve Never Gone in Lake Michigan in April…

…until today. And I’ve lived nearly my entire life by this lake. That shows you how rare our crazy (wonderful) Spring has been.

Today it was another 80-degree day. After preschool, I was debating what to do the entire ride home. Should we go get some lunch? Should we run errands? Should we play at the park? Should we go home? I consulted the Boy with Opinions (Eli) and he did NOT want to go to lunch (the kids always eat at the end of preschool). He wanted to go to the beach. I figured he was right, we should take advantage of this beautiful day while it lasted.

So we went to the beach that has a park too. I called my friend Krista, who had mentioned in an email that she was thinking about going sometime today, said we were going now and it would be fun to meet there if it worked for them. She was dropping her dog off for an appointment but they joined us a little bit later.

Here’s Eli with his signature rosy cheeks on a warm day -

Kai and Sisi, the siblings who get along SO WELL. It’s pretty amazing and sweet to watch them play together.

Eli climbed up on this motorcycle, which isn’t a big deal for most kids his age, but for Eli, this IS a big deal. I totally credit his physical therapy in helping him gain more arm and leg strength + coordination to get up there. There is such a difference when I watch Charlie climbing now at almost 15 months, compared to how Eli was at that same age. He hardly ever climbed up on stuff. I’m hoping we can spend lots of time this summer at different parks where he’ll keep getting practice. Yeah, Eli!!

After lots of park time, we moved down to the beach. Usually it’s too cold to swim in Lake Michigan in JUNE. The water was ACTUALLY bearable to wade in at the shore. But there were older kids running right in (like up to their waist – which was a little crazy but they seemed fine). Eli had a tiny shock when his shorts first got wet, but he got used to it after a while.

Charlie was very determined to go into the water… I love how far his feet sunk into the wet sand. He wasn’t so sure about that. Look at my WHITE legs that haven’t seen the sun since September. Though I guess they did see a little sun in California at Christmas time, but that doesn’t count.

Eli insisted that we bring the crocodile sand mold, so we stopped by our house on the way to the beach to pick it up. Then he was possessive over the croc head the entire time. Ahhh sharing is tough.

Charlie was so worn out by this point – he had a short morning nap, but was gearing up for another one, especially after playing outside for a while.

Eli kept carrying handfuls of wet drippy sand over to the croc head mold. I’m not sure what his exact plan was, but he kept doing that, over and over again.

Krista’s pregnant and was roasting in her black pants, but still had a smile on her face. :)

There’s Charlie’s classic move – pointing. Today he was pointing at the waves in the water and the occasional bird that flew by.

Turning Sisi into a mermaid -

I had crazy hair today, partly because I just let it air dry (instead of blowing it dry), but also because the wind was pretty fierce. I was glad I didn’t bother with the hair dryer though because it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Here’s Charlie as we’re starting up the staircase from the beach to get up to the parking lot. It must look so long from a 1-year-old’s perspective.

Hooray for an impromptu beach day!! Chicago will be back to 50s and 60s for the next little while, so this was a treat. It was fun to bust out the shorts and get all sandy!