Who would want to get up before 8 am?!

I'm not a morning person.  Getting up out of my nice cozy bed at 4:20 am is not my idea of a good time.  Its actually my idea of something a lunatic would do. 

However, I love clam digging.  Perhaps the only things that could cause me to (almost) voluntarily wake up at that ungodly hour are:
1) UFC (like, what if we had to get up early to travel somewhere? I could do that.)
2) clam digging
3) ....ok I'm coming up blank on this one.

So, to illustrate how much I love clam digging, I will tell you that not only did I get up at 4:20 am Wednesday, but I ALSO got up at the same time the VERY NEXT DAY.  Insanity! 
Wednesday Ernie forced me out of bed and I got dressed and stumbled around until we left the warm house and took off into the frigid cold to go to the ocean.  I was pretty jealous of Sophie.  She got to sleep until right before we left, and then she gets carried out of her room wrapped in blankets and catered to.  Dang it.  To add to the torture of this early morning, I forgot my coffee at home.  If you have any idea about anything that I love, you know that coffee is really high on the list, probably just under family.  Morning hater + no coffee = panic and weeping.

I'm getting off track. SO, Wednesday we loaded up the munchkin and took her with us to the beach, because what good are kids if you can't get their limit in clams too?  It was the perfect clam digging day.  Low tide was at 8:59, and we got our 3 limits of clams (that's 45!) and were driving away from the beach by 8:48!  That is what I call a successful dig.  We hung around in the town for a while, Ernie caught 3 dungeness crabs, and then we made it home in time to clean up and have our small group over. 

After all that, I was super tired.  But we agreed to do it again the next day.  I don't know about anyone else, but things always *sound* better to me in the evening, when I'm not being brutally torn from my peaceful slumber.  So....we got up again at the buttcrack of dawn, I stumbled around trying to get ready, and we squeezed into my mother in law's Suburban.  When I saw squeezed, I mean it.  We left our house and went to pick up Ernie's grandparents, and I was the only candidate for sitting in the third row of seats, next to Sophie in her carseat.  It must have been what sardines feel like.  Well, if food had feelings, which it doesn't.  Anyway.  Today, Friday, is Grandpa Leon's 87th birthday.  All he wanted to do when he found out there were clam tides this week was go to the ocean.  They haven't been in several years, although they used to go all the time.  Ernie has wonderful memories of going clam digging in his younger days with his grandparents, so we were happy to take them.  Ernie, Sophie, Carol, Grandma Doris and Grandpa Leon all headed off to the ocean.  (Let me say that I have to pretend to be a lot more of a morning person when there are old people there.  I feel bad acting grumpy.  So I was using a lot of energy, trying to seem chipper, wedged in beside a toddler in front of stinky crab pots, with numb feet.) 

Once we got to the beach we all made our way down there.  Grandpa Leon is not very steady on his feet, as much as he'd like you to believe he is.  It was a super windy day and I was sad that it was working against him.  He eventually had to go back to the truck, but he got to be out there at the ocean with us.  The rest of us all dug our limits, including Sophie.  Its hard work digging up clams, so we helped her with the digging part, but she was a super tough little girl and she picked up all 15 of her clams out of the sand, something that a lot of people, including our son and many otherwise mature adults, will not do because its "disgusting".  I was very proud of her and she was a really good girl. 

We went out to eat together, Ernie crabbed some more, and then we all drove back home after a very long day. When we dropped off the grandparents, Grandpa Leon said he wanted to thank us for letting them come along.  It was really sweet and I'm so glad it meant so much to him.  My grandparents are all gone now, and they always lived far from me.  Its wonderful to get to do things with Ernie's only remaining grandparents and I'm so glad we got to contribute to a great day for them. :) 

We usually take hundreds of pictures, but of course this time, when we have an extra special trip, we forgot to take the latest in our long line of cameras.  So although this was a long and rambling post, I wanted to make sure to record it because it was important for our family and I want to remember my daughter getting to do something that is special for our family with her great grandparents.