I'm Cold

This Saturday my sister-in-law and I took the kids to the beach to play in the sand before we went off to Ocean Downs to play the ponies. It was 81 degrees and sunny at my parents' house, one mile from the beach. It was cloudy, windy, and considerably chillier on the beach. However, the kids dug for sand crabs and built sand castles and tossed a frisbee for a while without complaining because they had something else on their minds: snow cones. They have been reminiscing about snow cones since we left the beach last summer. Although they got a snow cone at the circus and another one at the zoo on one weekend last month, it wasn't the same, because those were premade snow cones, not the type where you can choose the flavor.

After showing considerable restraint and playing for almost 45 minutes without badgering us, we led them up to the boardwalk and although things didn't look promising, we asked in one snack bar if they had snow cones.

"Yep, first ones of the season." The man went behind the counter and got a crate of syrups and a block of ice and brought it all out to the snow cone stand that had been like a shrine to the kids last summer. We left there with a green one (allegedly lemon-lime), a blue (supposedly raspberry) and green one, and a purple (reportedly grape) and blue one.

By this point the sun had disappeared and the wind had increased and things really weren't so pleasant on the beach, but we had three very happy kids. They sat together on a towel with other towels draped over them like blankets and set to work devouring hefty servings of artificial colors and flavors. When they had eaten their fill and their lips were sufficiently blue,either from the dye or the cold,they suddenly noticed the weather. One by one they announced "I'm cold," so we packed up and headed back. Something tells me all the separation pay we are receiving is going to finance a snow cone cart renovation this summer.