Beach Bumming

"I'm not ready to go home", he says as we are buttoning up things in the condo that we made our temporary home for 5 days. "I know!", I am thinking but don't want to verbalize because then we may have stayed and that would not have been an "adult" decision.
I loved going to the beach as a kid. We did it at least once a year and most generally twice. I feel very blessed to have had those opportunities.
Fast forward a few years (a few is an understatement, but hey, a girl can stretch the truth when it comes to years, right?). We have had the opportunity to have some of those similar experiences with our little women. Holy sugar honey iced tea; it was awesome!

The smiling! Oh, the smiling! I had a smile on my face the entire time. If I was sitting under the umbrella rubbing my feet in the sand, bodyboarding with the girls, searching for shells or little bits of ocean life; there is no doubt I was smiling.

I have mentioned before her love of water. Now there is an unwavering love of bodyboarding! It did not take her long to get good at it. Her ability to judge the oncoming wave and whether it would crest right is awesome. She is at home in these waters.

We joke that she will be an architect. Building things are high on her to do list. She made sandcastles, cookie dough (there was a specific way that she made it. Shannon did that with her while Ainzli and I bodyboarded,  so I don't have the recipe to share!) and pictures. All of that with sand. She loved just sitting in the sand, letting it run through her fingers.

Holding down the family spot. We had a pretty good set up daily. He and I did a lot of sitting here just staring out into the deep blue and watching our little women. Gosh, he is wonderful. Love this man.

We had to do something unexpected to make it ours. So I took 6 Ball jars that we could fill for our "souvenirs." When the tide would lower in the evening, it was easy to find some bits of life. I found a shell of some sort of crab, fully intact. In the above jar is some sand, seawater, shells, and little mussel type creatures. I don't know exactly what they are, but it was fun to watch them go in and out of their shells.

There are now 6 Ball jars on display in our kitchen. One with seaweed. One with a shell and seawater. One filled to the brim with shells. The one pictured above is there as well. Clear little reminders of what fun we had!

Best Day Ever!
Autumn