Bummin' it at the beach

We're here at Avila Beach and have so far avoided the rain and "severe weather alerts" that the forecast promised (fingers crossed that our luck holds for one more day). We drove here without one single pee stop. Now I know you're probably thinking, "Ack—TMI!—why on earth would you write something like that?" But it is truly remarkable. The girls have always had GI issues and I swear I have a bladder the size of a two-year old—most roadtrips involve many, many, many stops, much to TubaDad's chagrin. Anyhow, for some reason, this trip: not one single, solitary bathroom break. Woohoo, that was one fast drive! Anyhow, moving on to the pictures and leaving bathroom talk behind... we arrived in Avila, spilled out of the van, sent TubaDad to get the beachhouse keys, and immediately started playing in the sand. We set up camp near some huge driftwood and the busy bee girls thought they needed to make it into a "house": I asked Ro to take a pic of Maggie and I, and then gestured quite vehemently (and in vain) for her to actually point the camera at us, rather than off to the right, and here's what she captured.Oops: We did get things straightened out for the next snap, see?: Little sun-baby Ree: The girls found big, huge unweildy sticks and wrote their names in the sand (and, luckily, avoided clubbing us in the process): We soaked up every last ray of sun, then came back to the beachhouse and scarfed down some pizza and baked the new dessert I made up. No name for it yet, can anyone think of a good one? Basically they're oven-baked s'mores in cupcake papers. (Ro left, Ree right) No-Fire S'Mores Recipe: Put cupcake liners in your cupcake tin, cut graham cracker squares in circles (it's really easy if you use kitchen shears), and place a graham cracker circle into each cupcake paper. Place two hershey's chocolate squares on top of each graham cracker. Lay a marshmallow down on its side on top of the chocolate. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Enjoy your s'mores! (Note: Originally I did this by cutting the marshmallow and putting it sticky side down, but later testing—mmmmm—showed that it worked just as well, and was less sticky to eat, if I didn't cut the mallow.) Mmmm, yummy campout s'mores, without the bonfire. These are good to sneak for breakfast too, if any of them survive that long.