Beach Basics

The kids and I have been loving the new REI backpacks for our weekly trips to the beach. Having them carry their own gear is awesome on many levels.

We used to have such a hard time riffling through our big beach bag to find the snacks, the diapers, the water, my clothes, Jake's clothes, the sunscreen and on and on and on.  With our new backpacks we have our beach days dialed in! 

First of all each child carries their own towel, water, snack, and change of clothes. Right now the kids use some towels we got at IKEA that are a type of poncho towel with a hood. 

Each child has their own stainless steal double walled water bottle by Swell and a stainless steal bento box by LunchBots.

The idea with the backpacks was to train them to carry their own gear, so that we parents don't have to carry their stuff around South America for them.  And the training is going great.  It's been about three months now and we don't get any moaning or complaining about carrying them to and from the car, the beach, swim class etc.  They love the packs.  They play "hiking" with them at home and are ready to load them up to take them on our "AVENTURA GRANDE" as we call it. Now we have to train them to walk.....long distance walk!!