After they splasked in the pool for a while, I got a call from Mike that he was able to get off early. Well, 3 p.m., which lately is really early. So I packed up the kids and the beach stuff, and we took off for the sand and surf.

John spent the day collecting quartz rocks, which were everywhere. Dave just kinda puttered. They had their cool new hats with them, but they were all in and out of the water so often, they just wound up staying off most of the time.

Dave, puttering in the water.

Joan, building a sand castle

Even Tom had fun! We took him right in the water, because when we took him out of his seat, his whole back was soaked with sweat. He didn't like it at the time, but after, he felt nice and cool, and flashed me lots of goofy grins.

This is actually Wood lake - I think just one up on the chain of lakes through the valley. It's a smaller lake, so we thought it might be warmer, and it seemed to be. Lake Okanogan has been freaky cold, and we wanted to go to a place where we knew the kids would swim, because they were all melting in the heat. Wood Lake was perfect - still cold, but warm enough to plunge right in and stay in without turning TOO blue. All of the kids spent a good chunk of their time in the water, even if it was just sitting waist deep, like Joan and Dave like to do. Joan called this lake her bathtub. I think we might revisit this one again - especially if the Okanogan doesn't really warm up that much.