at the beach

 

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.  ~From the television show The Wonder Years

 



I am so tired, basically falling asleep over the keyboard, but I am determined to blog about our beach day because tomorrow is Caleb's birthday; summer is flying by and I want my blog to keep up with it.  Jacob, Ethan, and Grace went to Six Flags on Saturday so Rich and I took David, Caleb, Seth, and Sarah to the beach.  It felt amazingly simple, to have just four children with us.  We stopped at Starbucks first and took them in with us to pick out a treat.  I had an oatmeal and a venti iced cinnamon dolce latte.  The drive to the shore was fun, feet up on the dash, and went by fast.  The kids were great  (about an hour or so). 

 

We parked and loaded ourselves with the beach things.  The sand was incredibly hot even with my flip flops on.  Rich got our shade tent up while I slathered sun screen on the children.  There were a lot of people there, but not too bad.  It's fun to people watch.  The children got busy exploring and swimming.

 



 

Caleb collected shells and David collected rocks, like this one.  They were constantly bringing their finds to me, to admire.  They know I care. 

Seth took to the ocean in his typical style; no fear and tons of energy.  They only thing he hated was the taste of the ocean.  He is used to pond water and the salt was a complete shock to him.  For this reason, he doesn't like the beach, he says.

David also is like a fish.  He can swim very very well and never uses a life jacket anymore.  He swam and swam.  Rich and I smiled to watch him (without him knowing).  I do think one of the best parts of parenting is getting to observe the children unnoticed.   David was the only one who wanted to go back to the beach the very next day.  Even though he got up with puffy, red eyes (from the water).

This is the time of year to stock up on next year's bathing suits for the children.  My favorite brand is Land's End, and I just got Sarah Joy a darling suit, size 4, and another one for next year which is navy with white polka dots.

I asked Rich to take some pictures with his iphone, too.  He took this one, I'm in the water with the boys and Sarah, who is very timid, stayed on shore to watch us. 

photo by Rich

photo by Rich

photo by Rich

 

photo by Rich

 

We took a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and two bags of chips.  We bought drinks at the beach.  I had a few magazines to look at and when Sarah got tired she would come lay down next to me and suck her finger.......we were at the beach for five hours!

 

On the way home, I took a self portrait and Sarah laughed.  The children all fell asleep and we stopped at the mall to eat at the food court.  I had a strawberry poppyseed salad from Panera.

 

We brought home half the beach with us and I'm still sweeping up sand. 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday, Rich took this picture of me and the kids.

Sometimes I'm so happy with my family I get tears in my eyes.  David, who is 10, doesn't understand but I think he will, someday.