What started as a day with a few hours of sleep missing, turned out to be pretty great in the end.

The morning was pretty normal, with a walk to the supermarket to stock up on a few missing items, and then lunch. Nothing to write home about.

Still, tinyMovieStar wouldn’t sleep, even though she should be falling apart. movieStar had a great idea: I had to go out for cigarettes, they would both tag along. We decided to do a whole afternoon out of it.

It would turn out much nicer than we expected.

We drove to the beach, at Guincho. We love driving there, sun was out, not many people on the road. Perfect. We hadn’t even considered going to the beach but, once we were close, we did. The weather was not perfect by then, turned cloudy and windy, but the little one couldn’t care less. She was beyond thrilled!

She’s been to the beach before, but acted like it was the first time, and the beach was THE BEST THING EVER! She’s a pretty happy girl, smiling all the time, but today she was over the top!

She couldn’t get enough of all the sand, playing with it, her feet and hands covered in it. She met another baby, talked to him, and promptly got back to the sand. And then some more.

It was getting darker, the clouds more menacing, and we were getting cold. It was time to go.

She was devastated! Crying, asking to be put on the ground again, more crying. We were driving away and the only thing that got her to stop was telling her we would stop by her grandfather on the way home.

And we did just that. The sun was shining again, my father-in-law commandeered two golf buggies, and we rode around the course. It’s a beautiful one. She was happy again, riding the buggy with mom and dad, looking at the ducks and birds that call the course their home.

She did not sleep on the way over. Not until after she had dinner. She was happy by then.