The Beach

Today I had a spur of the moment idea and went with it.  Today was the last day of our Youth Conference but I was unable to attend as a leader because Marc couldn't take the day off, I have new baby who loves to eat and hates his carseat and the fact that I have a lot of little kids is pretty obvious reasons why I couldn't attend.

But then I got to thinking and my thought process went something like this: what if I went and took all my kids with me.  I mean they have always wanted to go the beach, there will be people and youth up there that we know.  The youth love my kids.  I would have extra hands and eyes to help me, the kids would have fun and I would be able to do my youth leader duty; which I feel I have been slacking on since having Isaac.

So the kids helped me pack up, really they did amazing, and we went.  I didn't really plan everything out.  If I had I would have brought food with us - like a dinner rather than some snacks.  I talked to the kids about being buddies together, staying close, watching out for one another and not going too deep.  They did awesome, I really am very proud of them. No one got swept in the undertow, no one swallowed the lake, and no one got upset with each other. Andrew wanted nothing to do with swimming so he hung out with me and Isaac on the blanket under our umbrella. That totally worked because I think having him in the water would have stressed me out.

The kids had fun.  Isaac was surprisingly happy (as long as we were not in the van) and I was able to relax.  Shocking, I know.  We went to the same area that our youth were at but unfortunately we didn't catch up with them.  We looked but must have missed them.  That's ok, it would have been fun to be with them but it was also fun to just be as a family.  Next time though, we will be taking daddy. He felt left out and we missed him.

Benjamin was being a little geologist most of the time.  He spent his time either splashing in the water or digging for rocks and studying them.  Andrew kept scooping up the sand and dumping it on the blanket so he could play with it.  They all worked together to build their own Dam and it actually survived the waves there for a while.   Rachel loved running along the beach on all 4's, just like an animal. When I showed her a picture of her running like that along the beach she got embarrassed so I promised I wouldn't post it. Hannah was hilarious - she couldn't figure out why her feet kept getting sandy.  She would run into the water to rinse them off and by the time she got back to where I was her feet would be covered in sand.