Beach - The Sand

In a nutshell, I don't think Ellie is a beach person. She gets that from my side of the family. I hate the beach. Seriously, it's just not my idea of a good time. I don't mind laying around on the beach for an afternoon, but there comes a time (usually sooner for me than for others) when I realize that I'm just hot and I have sand in areas of my body that were not designed to handle sand. It's at this point where I need something more to do, like hiking or site-seeing. Neither of which DE is known for. Add the fact that I'm pregnant to the normal beach experience and I now have more sympathy for those poor beached whales.
Enough about me... let's talk about Ellie. Note the awesome picture - I love the sand being poured. Ellie was terrified of the ocean. The first time we tried to get her to stand in the water (very very shallow), she did not like the feeling of the sand being sucked out from under her feet when the wave went away. From that point on, she declared the water to be evil and would beg for it to go away and leave her alone.
The first day at the beach was a complete flop. It took me forever to convince her to stop playing with the small pile of sand at the edge of the parking lot, only to later find out that we should have stayed there. She let it be known that the ocean tried to eat her alive and as soon as she realized that Uncle David was actually **IN** the water, she freaked out because of her concern for his life. Then she got sun-screen in her eyes and she tried to wipe it out, only her hand was covered with sand. Not pretty. The parking lot would have been more fun.

Sometime during the week, we did convince her to get closer to the water one time and being the stupid first-time parents that we are, we tried to make it into a playful game and said something like "oh, the water's going to get you!" in a innocent playful way. Ellie did not take it as such and firmly concluded that the water getting her was NOT a good idea.
But by the end of the week, she was enjoying playing in the sand (and Mommy and Daddy even tried to pretend to enjoy it along with her). Mommy helped her make sand castles, for which she promptly stomped to smithereens and Daddy helped her dig great big holes. Then, when she was pouring water into the big hole (above), stupid Mommy made the mistake of jokingly saying "oh oh, here comes the water!" Ellie responded quickly by dropping the bucket, and racing over to Mommy, climbing up her back and trying to sit on her shoulders. Literally. It took some convincing to get her to understand that I wasn't talking about the ocean water. I explained to her that we're sitting on the dry sand and the water could only reach the wet sand. We were safe. She hesitated but did continue to play. For the next hour I closely watched the tide come in and silently prayed that it would not reach us and turn me into a liar. It got close, but we made it out alive.