Sea Monster Sandcastle

This past weekend we enjoyed two glorious beach days that make living in a place called 'Vacationland' a joy. The sun was shining, nothing but bright blue skies above. Lowtide was in the middle of the day offering a huge expanse sand. Recent erosion on Popham beach has made it practically non existent at high tide.  A constant cool breeze blew in from the Atlantic, making us forget the heat of the sun's rays and sparing us attacks from the dreaded green head flies.

I come from a line of serious sandcastle builders and now that Celia is old enough to join in the fun I'm enjoying the chance to play with sand again. While the kids were frolicking in the waves I dug up four mounds of sand. When they came out of the water I had just finished shaping the head and they all hit the sand to help smooth the mounds and form a bumpy ridge along the top. It brings me so much happiness when kids are excited to create.

My husband Jon helped by elongating the tail forming it into a curved shape. When we decided the monster should be spewing seaweed, the kids enthusiastically collected and positioned it. My only wish was that we had rocks or shells for teeth, none were to be found.

Our monster made us lots of new friends, kids from other families joined in the fun. Celia and one of her new friends kept rebuilding the head as the incoming tide carved away our creation.

Sunday we made a giant starfish the kids helped out and covered it with different varieties of seaweed. We enjoyed watching the ocean claim it, although it lacked the presence and magic of our monster.