So far summer has been a bunch of rainy days stuck in the house or going to museums or dragging four boys on errands.

Every day I wake up hopefully that we are going to have a great summer day and every day it’s too cold or thunderstorming to do anything remotely summery.

This afternoon I finally felt the first taste of summer.

After the twins nap we packed up toys, a picnic dinner, water bottles, sunscreen, diapers, yada yada yada and walked over to North Avenue Beach.

I was only able to do it by myself because Jack was there to help. He pushed that stroller on a 20 minute hike to the beach that included two steep bridges.

We got a lot of double takes and one woman actually stopped me to ask if they were all mine.

It was sandy, wet, messy and awesome. Everyone played nicely together for a change. And once again Jack was super helpful, making sand cakes for all the kids and playing with each of his siblings.

Besides the normal Jack and Sam pairing, where Jack and Sam actually play together, my two sensory kids (Aaron has not been diagnosed but I do see a lot of similarities) had a bit of a pairing themselves.

Ben and Aaron eating sand, together.

I only had one moment where I realized it was not ideal to be alone at the beach with four kids.

Ben drank his entire water bottle on the way down and at one point he ran up to me, jumping and squiggling, and told me he needed to go potty. NOW.

I realized I couldn’t pack up four kids and put their shoes on and grab my stuff and run to the bathroom in time so I just told Ben to pee in the water.

So he did. He waded in up to his knees, then dropped his pants and peed as if Lake Michigan was his own private toilet.

It was my own fault for not explaining to him you should get all the way in and pretend you are swimming with your clothes on while you pee. I couldn’t even be angry at him. Jack and I had a good laugh about it, then Jack proudly admitted he did it all the time at the beach too.

In the end, the rain caught up with us. So did Adam. He was walking home from work while we were rounding the corner for the house.

This time, the rain didn’t bother me at all.