If you're really lucky you'll have someone in your group be in the building industry so he can bring along a water pump with a generator attached to help bring water to the sand-castle building "site:"
Can you believe that??
Enjoy the 15 minutes that contraption works like a charm:
When it malfunctions, stand around and try to fix it for a while.
...then resort to sheer man/child power to carry the water and sand to the base after you've added the second level.
Have the children who are not hard at work occupy the sweet baby:
And put middle-sized children to work building "sand-balls" to line the castle entry:
When the bottom level plywood buckles from all the sand pressure, fortify it with more sand on the outside:
Beware of the top level being too high because it will buckle and fall when you take off that plywood:
Re-do top layer.This is a good way to keep kids who are sand-castle-knocker-downers out of the midst of the building process:
Have the Moms "back-seat-build" and gab on the sidelines.
Then let the carving begin:
Carve layers one at a time.
That's Lisa and my personal "princess balcony" on the side above...
Take pictures of every angle before all the kids start wrecking the hard work.
Nothing like working hard on a great sand-castle to commemorate the 4th of July.