Labor Day in May?

Yes, in Belgium we celebrate Labor Day in May, so K and the kids had the day off. The sun was supposed to be out all day and the high reaching up to 67 degrees. A perfect day for the English Channel beach - just a 2 hour drive from our house. Sure beats driving to Florida (about 18 hours?) with 2 kids in the back seat.

Supposedly the Belgian coast is crowded, but if you cross over the border to the Netherlands, the atmosphere is more relaxed. We heeded the advice from others and ended up in a town called Cadzand. After parking the car, we walked up the ramp to discover the beach...Beautiful!

You can click on the picture below and see K and Kelsey, our dog, who made her debut at the beach. So much for a little dog to see and take in! She basked in the sun all day and crashed on the way home from all the activity.

Some of the sights we took in included sailboats, cargo ships, kids digging in the sand, dogs playing with their owners, kids playing paddleball and cricket on the beach, naked kids (I think I counted about 10) running around - why?, and one lady bathing topless (welcome to Europe everyone!). Luckily my kids didn't see or we were going to be in for a discussion. They did wonder why all the children were running around without bathing suits. Yeah, me too. The other peculiar thing is that some kids had t-shirts on, but no pants.

This is J burying her arms in the sand.
J building her dream castle.

R building digging in a pit.

R and K playing paddleball. Can you eye-spy something he's missing? That tricky photographer!

This cute little area of beach had a restaurant so we could eat lunch outside with our feet still sandy. Children climbed on the playset nearby and teeter tottering became another fun activity for the kids.

You can't drive through the Netherlands without seeing some windmills worth photographing! Here's two we found along the way.

We had a great time at the beach and I'm sure we'll continue to go throughout the summer!