First beach trip of the season

I'm sure you saw my pictures on Facebook, but we had our first beach day of the year.  You know, I'm not sure we went at all last year.  Our favorite people to go to the beach with are my friend Lara and her kids.  Lara's oldest, Emily, is super close with Kara, and we're kind of raising them as cousins.  So, beach days with them are always epic.  (Oh, we didn't go last year because Lara had a baby.  This year he's almost 1, so we hit the beach.)  We decided to spend the night at their house afterwards and the whole thing was a blast!

Instead of taking them all the way to the ocean, we took them to the Chesapeake Bay instead.  The water is very shallow and there are no roaring waves.  There were maybe 5 families (which means they still had other kids to play with), but not huge crowds.  We sat pretty far back (in the shade) while the kids swam and swam and swam.  When we go to the ocean, they can't swim at all because of the rip-tides, crazy waves, etc.  All of that, and this "little beach" was halfway between Lara's and my house - a 30 minute drive for each of us.  Totally.  Doable.

Looking forward to many more trips to this beach!