The boys were out in the backyard weeding, and Courtney went out to join them. Just as she opened the back door, a lizard was running across the porch, bounced off her cowgirl boot, and into the house. The boys came running in, yelling, "There's a lizard in the house!" Mr. Lizard was hiding behind our couch, so Darren flipped it upside down, and it wasn't there. We decided that he had crawled up inside the couch, so we hurried and pulled the couch outside, to shake him out.
OK, so he wasn't in the couch. He was hiding under the toy box. At this point, Darren had taken every box and piece of furniture in our house and made a blockade/running path to shoo that lizard out the back door. We moved the toy box, and our lizard friend ran under the entertainment center. Darren completely emptied the entertainment center, DVDs, movies, scrapbooks, TV, VCR, you name it, it was out. Then came the shovels and bowls......
About a half hour later, they scared the poor little intruder out, but then Darren trapped him under two couch cushions. After a grueling 10 minutes more, Darren got the guts to grab the lizard's tail and fling him out of the cushions. The lizard (luckily) found the running path and scurried out the back door. WHAT a mess! And all for a little lizard! (Darren will tell you the lizard was enormous!) 
Oooh! That water's cold!!! The Pacific Ocean waves are much bigger than the Atlantic Ocean waves we're used to. Woo! We kept getting knocked over.
Check out this cool cave Xanderman dug out of the sand! He worked at it for at least an hour.
It was the perfect day for relaxing at the beach. We sure do miss being close to the ocean. Darren found another great way to recycle an empty lunchables box!
Courtney loved the beach and kept discovering shells and running back and forth to add them to her collection. The last summer she spent at the beach (in Maine) was when she was just one year old, so this will most likely be her first memory of the ocean.
Here is our attempt at a sand sculpture (it's a turtle).
