First Day of Summer...at the fake beach

Today was the first day of summer and the longest day of the year! So we appropriately spent it at "the beach". Well, it was the Santa Margarita Beach Club, or as I call it: the fake beach. My parents' community has a really cool man-made beach which is like a huge shallow swimming pool with tons of sand. It's perfect for the little kids (and the parents too).
Rachael, Laura, Camille, Karen, all the kids, and I headed over there and everyone had a great time. Before we even went into the beach area, Lucy found a great toy to play on....the bike-lock stand. It was really cute, she fit perfectly under the arches. She just walked back and forth between them:

Once we were in the beach, Lucy couldn't get enough of the water. I am not kidding, this girl has no fear. I'm sure it will be a good trait later in life....but for now, it made my beach experience a little difficult. She thinks she can just go and go and go deeper into the water. And no matter how much water she swallows, she just wants to head further out. Jeremy, her 5 year old cousin, can reach in the deeper parts, so of course she just wanted to go play with Jeremy. Here she is splashing and acting crazy in the water:

And here's our little doggie paddler. You'll notice her swallowing water, but continuing on:

And I just love this shot of her bum. It was quite round and full of water (and perhaps other things):
Ava had lots of fun playing in the water too:
Lucy had a great time, for the 1 hour we were there. I got a little tired of constantly rescuing her from drowning, so we didn't stay as long as the others. But we had fun back at Gram's house too. We both took naps. Ahh, that was nice. And then Lucy had a ball sitting in Jeremy's little camp chair and hugging Elmo:
Of course, she had to check on Chip, the desert tortoise in the backyard. But Chip was camoflouged and hanging out by the wall. So Lucy couldn't see him. Here's Lucy's "I can't find Chip" face:
We finished off the summer evening with a nice dinner outside with my parents and Camille. And it didn't get dark till almost 9pm! I must have timed our drive home perfectly, because we caught the Disneyland fireworks in the sky just as we drove by on the 5 (nice rhyme). What a fun summer day!