October Pier Walk

When Crew broke his arm, the swim lessons that he was finally thriving in and trips to the pool and beach came to an abrupt halt. He asked us every single day if we could go to the pool. When we told him "No," he'd ask, "Can we go to the beach?" Again, we'd have to break the news to him that he couldn't get his cast wet, so the pool and beach were not ideal places for us to go.

But we couldn't completely keep away from the shore in our beautiful October weather. We made peace with a bike ride along the boardwalk and lunch overlooking the ocean, followed by a walk on the pier. That way, Crew's cast could remain sand and water free but we could still get our fill of salty air, waves and surfers.

That lunch view was hard to beat.

The boys were so happy to be in our favorite place that it didn't matter that we left the buckets and boogie boards behind.

Crew was especially grateful to be back after our multi-week beach hiatus.

He plopped right down to soak it all in.

Nash joined him.

And did a little of his own relaxation, in typical Nash fashion.

We stopped to listen to a guitarist on the way back to grab our bikes.

Finn was tuckered out by that point.

We caved on our "no going in the sand" rule a bit at the end because Crew wanted to go on the swings so badly and we couldn't bear adding another "no" to the list. He had close supervision to make sure his cast didn't take a dip in the sand. 

Blake and Nash quickly relocated from the swings to a gigantic pile of rocks. 

But not Crew. We didn't go to many playgrounds during the time his arm was casted because most of the parks in our town also have sand. Crew would have stayed on that swing on the beach all day if we had let him.

Some ocean air was just what we all needed after being cooped up more than we were used to. It was enough to tide us over a couple more weeks until Crew's cast came off for good.