Life's a Beach

The highlight of our summer was a trip to Topeka, KS to see some much loved friends. These are not pictures from that trip. BUT, during that trip we spent an afternoon at Shawnee Lake's beach area. This was back in June. It was so much fun, in fact, that Rhetta did nothing but draw pictures of the beach all summer afterward, much like this one:

And this one:

The rest of our summer was really low-key. Rhetta continued to draw pictures of and talk about the beach, though, so we took them to Ridgeway State Park where there is a small beach at Dutch Charlie and made a wonderful day of it.

Running down to the shoreline. Willon was screaming, "IT'S A LAKE!"

Ridgeway Reservoir is almost an alpine lake. This late in the year it is low and full of glacial waters. What I mean to say is, it was COLD! But that didn't bother Rhetta. She got in up to her neck more than once. She seemed a little lost in herself but she enjoyed the lake nonetheless.

 

Willon spent a good deal of the time scooping dirt, throwing it in the lake, washing his hands off, then starting all over and doing it again.

Cold breeze!

The most fun they had was making sand castles. We brought two little buckets and two little shovels and they went right to work. They worked together for quite awhile however it quickly turned into Rob and Rhetta setting them up and Godzilla (you know who) knocking them down. They could barely keep up! LOL

Even Rob got his feet wet.

Far above the shoreline is a playground that we couldn't miss before leaving because it has this awesome slide made out of conveyor rollers! Willon popped a button in case you were wondering, and in his video he squeaks, "I did it!" They went down a time or two then I taught them to make a sound while they rolled. Huge hit! And that was our day.