A Great Day at the Beach

Last week was kind of like spring break here in Honduras for schools. Friday we took the Beltrand children and their caretakers to the beach to have a vacation day. It was a beautiful day. The children had NEVER been to the beach. We left their house at 8:00 that morning, stopped at the ice factory to fill our cooler and headed to Los Delgaditos. When we got there the kids did not know what they were supposed to do. Everyone was hungry so we all ate ham and cheese sandwiches and enjoyed yummy cold cokes. Then Chad ran and got in the water. Soon after him, everyone had found their way into the water too.

They had so much fun. Iris is the only one that was not too fond of the water. She would go in but did not like to go where she could not stand up. We buried Gabriella in the sand, Geovani and Leonel made sand castles, Diana rode the waves, Nohelia and Iris played in the waves as they broke, and everyone had a great time. Doris, Danilo (our driver) and his two children went with us also. At about 11:00 they all went on a walk down the beach because the "lanchas" were coming in with their catches from the morning. They went down and visited with the fishermen and Danilo came back with fish and shrimp that he had bought to take home for supper. The rest of the time we were there we kept a count of all the boats that were coming in with seafood to sell.

The 2 Claudias got into a sand fight. It was great getting to see them all pitch in and throwing sand all over the place. Little Claudia was covered in sand! We got some great pictures of the day. We took a break at noon to eat lunch. Claudia had made a big pot of rice, veggies, and chicken. Chad had made brownies the night before to take with us. We ate and then decided we better get ready to leave. We had a 2 hour trip back to San Marcos. Chad decided he would drive us back to Choluteca because he wanted Danilo to have some time off from driving that day. We all loaded up in the van and backed up about 10 feet and we were stuck. Chad got the van stuck in the sand. Danilo, Chad and Doris all went and found rocks to put under the tire that was spinning to give it some traction, but that did not help. Eventually the man that runs the area where we were came over with 2 shovels and we dug out the sand and tried some more rocks under the tires. Chad went across the street to get someone to bring a truck over to pull us out and while he was there, Doris, Danilo and the man from the beach got the van out. We were able to head back toward home.

We stopped in Choluteca at Wendy's and got everybody a Frosty. We were all sitting there quiet. We were all so tired that we just sat there and ate our Frosties. After eating their frosties, the little ones went to the play ground to play for a while.

We had a great day and I think the children will never forget the experience they had that day. We hope to go again soon.

Shelly