Time for my weekly no pay babysitting job

My husband plays beach volleyball in a local park district league with some friends of ours. It's an 8 week season at a beach in a town near us who's beach is normally only open to town residents (not our town). So we pack up the kids once a week and make a nice afternoon of it. The kids play in the sand and surf with our friends kids and have a great time. Sounds fun right? It is for everyone but me.

All our other friends are on the team so can't watch their own kids, so guess who does? That's right, me. I wouldn't mind as much if they had ever asked me if I would mind doing it, or thank'd me after. I mean have 3 kids of my own. One other couple that plays every week have 2 boys (6 and 4) Another couple just joined us, but they have a fairly new baby and a 4 year old daughter who is more clingy so they do watch their kids more, and the Mom did apologize last week when she saw her daughter kept asking me to bring her from the playground to the volleyball area because she wanted Daddy. So yes last week I was watching 6 kids.

We've been playing with the couple with the 2 boys all season and not once do I get a thank you. I admit it's only about an hour but the volleyball area is about 100 ft from the water, the playground about 100 yards from the volleyball area in a different direction. I have 5-6 kids to watch and have to convince them all to agree on playing in the same area.

Add to that that I can't swim so get a bit nervous when the young ones go into the water. I know my kids abilities but not theirs.

Last week luckily the water was off limits due to high bacteria levels after all the storms, but that won't be the case today.

Admittedly I could skip this week since my husband is working and so can't play but this will be the last week we can go since we'll be on our trip the next two weeks.

Wish me luck.