putting on the ritz

My sister's friend Anne came to town with her family for her and my sisters birthdays.  They stayed at the Ritz here in town, which meant that my sister and I got to visit them and take advantage of the amenities.

Well, first I had to park here at South Lido Park and walk along the hotels before I got to the Ritz, not like that was anything hard to do.

You probably are thinking that I spent the rest of the day lounging and sipping pina coladas right?  Wrong.  Well, partially wrong, there were definitely pina coladas, so many pina coladas, but not very much lounging.  Anne and Lee's son Tripp assumed, as most children do, that I would be more interested in building sand castles and playing marco polo than lounging on a beach chair.  And he was right.

Here's our sand castle:

We had grand plans of extending it and building a whole town but the tide came in too quickly so this was about the most we got done.  In case you can't tell, that's a wicked awesome mote around our castle which is covered in white, purple, and orange shells.  My favorite part of the sand castle building was a conversation between Tripp and me that went something like this;

     Me:  I don't really want to sit down now because it's getting late and the waters too cold for me to go in and rinse off now.

     Tripp: (thoughtfully)  Well, I'm sure if you get sandy you will figure out a way to rinse off.

     Me:  You know what, that's probably true, I can't argue with you.

     Tripp:  Yeah, I think it's time you toughen up.

And toughen up I had to, as the day only got bloodier for me.  Due to some unfair trickery during Marco Polo I totally wretched up my arm by diving directly in to the wall of the pool.  I also swallowed a giant gulp of public pool water which I tried not to be as horrified about as I actually was.  All I could think of was all those green juices and coconut waters going down the drain as I guzzled chlorine and urine.  Ew I don't even want to think about it now.

But that was the worst thing that happened to me all day, which makes for a pretty fantastic day.  I didn't even get kicked out of the restaurant for only having booty shorts to wear!

And check out this amazing sunset:

It's so beautiful and resort like that I kept forgetting I had driven here and that I live only 10 minutes away.  So fun to take a vacation in your own town.  I'm glad the fam came for Anne's birthday, it was such a fun excuse to party hearty on what would have been another humdrum saturday.  Happy Birthday Anne!