5 Family Beach Games Everyone Will Enjoy - Yahoo Voices - voices.yahoo.com

After traveling hundreds of miles listening to your kids scream and bicker at each other you then arrive at the beloved, beautiful beach only to see your kids engaged --together for once-- in their iPad. Not this year! Leave your iPad in the room for this family beach vacation! Let me show you five beach games that are fun for the entire family, not excluding anyone. Gather the family and stake your spot on the sand for the day because you guys are in for a long, fun day!

1. Capture the Minnows

For this beach activity, you will need small minnow nets or butterfly nets. You can buy these at any dollar store. We have all seen the hundreds to thousands of minnows that frequent the shallow water at the beach. For this game you will be catching those minnows with your nets competing against your lovely family members. The first person to catch five minnows wins the game and has exclusive bragging rights as the minnow king or queen for the rest of the vacation.

2. Flip-Flop Race

Grab a pair or two of dollar store flip-flops for this game and you've got lasting fun! Write the names of a family member on each flip-flop so that everyone has their own. A parent will wade to waist deep water with all of the flip-flops and let them go at one time. The shoes will be pushed in with each wave and the one that reaches the shore first wins.

3. Submerge the Beach Ball

Team effort is required for this game. Buy a big beach ball at the dollar store and bring the entire family into waist deep water. Work together to try to push the beach ball underwater so that it is completely submerged. You will quickly find out that a technique is required. It is much harder than it sounds!

4. Quick Writing

Quickness is key with this game! Come up with a sentence or phrase that everyone will write. Take turns writing this sentence or phrase where the waves barely come up over the sand. The person who completes the phrase before the waves wipe it away in the shortest amount of time wins!

5. Heads on the Beach

If you have had enough water for the day, move up to the sandy shore and play this fun beach game! Dig a small body hole in the sand and have your kids lie down in it. The parents will cover their kid's bodies entirely with sand so that only their heads stick out. This makes for great pictures and helpless kids stuck in the sand begging their parents for freedom!

As seen with these games, every family member can enjoy the beach together. There's no need to separate the fun so the kids do one activity and the parents do another. Enjoy every aspect of the beach together with these fun family activities and make a memorable vacation that the whole family will not soon forget!