At the Beach

Wow. . . life will not slow down these days!
We have been keeping busy with vacation recovery, laundry, Jackson and Lola birthdays, homework catch-up, Bear Lake, chasing after a busy 10 month old and lots of life thrown in.
But we have been having lots of fun!

One day soon I'd like to write about our fabulously fun vacation to California. We had lots of good times, many cute pictures and such great memories made.

But. . . until I get around to that, I had to post these pictures of my cutest little monkeys at the beach. Is there anything quite like the beach? I think not. Of all the great things we did in California, our beach day stands out to me as impossible to top.

At the beach Miles is in a zone. He can be a little tricky to manage on vacation, but at the beach, I can relax knowing that he will be kept busy for hours. He makes mud balls (an art form he learned from his uncle Joe). He throws mud balls in the ocean. He buries himself in sand. He chases sea gulls. He plays with seaweed and searches for sand dollars. He runs. He does lots of digging and designing. He gets fabulously dirty. And he gets in the water from time to time.

At the beach Jackson spends hours in the ocean. He is drawn to the waves. He loves to go out as far as his mama will let him and try and ride the waves in. He is easy to spot from the shore because of his cute little skinny body. He stays in the freezing California water until his lips are blue and his body is shaking. He comes up where the sand is warm, covers himself in it and lays, content, until his body temperature is back up. Then he heads back to the ocean.


At the beach Lola becomes daring. She is happy to head out, hand in hand with cousin Izzy, and play in the water. Because of her short legs, she hangs back just a little from the rest of the kids. She runs, smiling, back to shore when the big waves start to come in. She searches for seashells and sand dollars. She makes a turtle nest with Izzy and Jackson in the warm sand. She is happy to lay on her towel and relax. She is so pretty standing against the colors of the water and the sand.

At the beach Stella gets to experience something brand new. I love seeing the beach through her eyes. She isn't sure about the sand when we first get there. She doesn't move off her towel. She likes the wet sand but isn't fond of the freezing water. She laughs and hollers at the seagulls. She crawls around for hours searching for treasures to put in her mouth. She is covered in sand by the end of the day and doesn't seem to mind it one bit. She puts a smile on my face as I watch her soak in this experience.