The Williams Family: Maitencillo and Landon's first trip to the beach

Yesterday we were able to take advantage of having Guillermo's car and go to the coast. We took our friends, Matt, Jessica, and little Evan and drove about and hour and a half to a small town called Maitencillo. It was packed with people, in part because it is February and everyone is on vacation, and also because there happened to be a surf competition going on there, too. We got a late start on the day, so we arrived around two o'clock and found a restaurant to have lunch. Jimmy has been really looking forward to being by the coast so he could enjoy a big seafood lunch, and the one we had hit the spot for him.

It was kind of overcast when we got there, but part way through lunch the sun came out, and gave us a nice break from the gray. The sun here is very strong when you are directly in it, and its a huge difference in temp from the shade to the sun.

After lunch we headed down to the beach with the kids and realized that I had forgotten to pack Jimmy's swimsuit :(. He was not very happy with me, but getting to teach some teenagers how to throw a football on the beach made up for my mistake a bit...

Enjoying a Pisco Sour, sort of the national drink here

Our server at the restaurant was very nice and took several pictures for us, including all the zoomed in ones below of the boys and I...

Lunch with our friends (and neighbors) Matt (from Canada), Jessica (from Chile), and their son Evan (9 mo).

The beach we ended up at was called El Abanico, and there happened to be a surf competition going on, so there were surfers everywhere.

There aren't too many shots of Landon in the water because, after the initial contact, he realized how cold the Pacific water is here, and was content being on the sand the rest of the time. He did like running out on the wet sand though, but was startled by the water rushing at him I think.

This reminds me of someone about to start breakdancing...

Sand was everywhere, his mouth included

Notice Jimmy in the background with a very attentive group of guys listening and learning how to correctly throw a football. They had a real football of their own, but didn't know how to throw it to make it spiral.

Jimmy says the guys in the red suit made noticeable improvement on his throw in the 20 minutes that they were playing catch together. I think he was a proud teacher, and excited to get to play catch with a real football in a country where American football doesn't exist!