Tubing, Basketball, And Dancing....

We got our wish. The kids slept until 6:45 this morning. So after a late breakfast we went down to the beach for some play time. I took the two boys out to the raft and we hung out there for a while. While standing there at the raft I saw a jelly fish and caught it. I put it on the raft and went back to shore to get a bucket to put it in. But on my return I found the jellyfish was gone. Nicky had been scooping up water with his hand and keeping it wet so it wouldn’t die and inadvertently washed it off and into the water. So I walked around for a bit looking for more jellyfish and found a large shell on the seafloor. I picked it up and we found a tiny baby crab holding on. After hanging out there for a bit longer and almost catching two more jellyfish we headed back to shore to show Jennie our catch.

While sitting there at our spot on the beach, George came over to say hello to us and offered to take the boys out on the water. He owns his own boat and has it anchored right off of shore here at the cottages. He’s also got one of those large tubes that you can tow behind the boat and ride on. First up was Nicky. He sat in the middle and I held on to a couple of the handles and got dragged along while floating in the water. After a little bit (30 seconds or so) Nicky got mad at me for holding on and staying with him. Since he considers himself a big boy now that he’s 5, he felt like he should be able to go on solo. So I let go and he rode by himself for a little while. Next up was Thomas. He is definitely still too little to go by himself, so this time I sat in the tube and he sat on top for the ride. He wasn’t too impressed with the ride. He was excited for the first 10-15 seconds but then all he wanted to do was stop it and ride in the big boat. So the boys and I sat in the back of the boat while George’s grandsons got on the tube for their ride. Matthew, 13, and Daniel, 11, were very funny. Due to the fact that the tube is 25 feet behind the boat and the roar of the engine makes it difficult to hear anyway, we had to rely on hand signals from whoever is on the tube to let the driver of the boat know what to do. There were 3 signals. Arm extended forward with the palm up and moving the arm in an up and down movement meant to speed up. Arm closer in with the palm down and making the movement as if you were pushing something down meant to slow down. The third signal was to extend your arm out and bend at the elbow 90 degrees so your forearm is parallel to your chest. Then you make a wavelike motion with your arm to signify that you wanted the boat to make some turns so that the tube would go over waves and make for a bumpier ride. So we pulled the boys out to deeper water traveling at a slow speed then sped up when it got deeper. There was Matthew on the back giving the “speed up” and “wave” signals, while Daniel was giving the “slow down” signal. Although we couldn’t hear him, we could see that Daniel was screaming at Matthew that he didn’t want to speed up. Maybe the whole scene was so amusing to me because I can see that scene playing out between Nicky and Thomas in 8 years. So after pulling Matthew and Daniel around for a few minutes, George dropped off Nicky, Thomas and I at the shore and we went up to the cottage for some lunch.

After lunch was play time. We drove to the basketball court in Provincetown where I met up with Max, Jim and Evan for some ball and the kids played in the playground adjacent to the courts. Today was also the annual parade through down which took place down Commercial Street which was only one block from where we were. There was no problem hearing all the music that was blasting and the boys would stop wherever they were and danced along to the music every time a different float drove past. Basketball was good. No one got hurt and we all got in some good exercise. Then we went back to the cottage for some more beach time. After a short time on the beach, we went up to the cottage for dinner and a movie. With only one nap for Alexis and a very short one for Thomas, along with a pretty busy day, all 3 kids were asleep by 8:30.