Monday, August 27, 2007

Two Days at the Beach

I have been really lax about posting lately--but with good reason. We have been having parties galore here--a barbecue for folks at Matt's office, Ben and Emma's combined birthday bash, and tomorrow a baby shower for my friend, due in October. My dear friend Jenn is also visiting from NC, and although she isn't staying with us, our daughters have had two sleepovers and we have seen their family nearly every day of their trip.

Yesterday we decided to head out to the beach in the late afternoon--it had been threatening to rain all day and we'd put it off, but finally decided that we should just go. Luckily, it never rained at all, and we had a lovely time. Tide was low, so we walked down the beach and headed out on a sandbar, something I have always wanted to do since we moved here 7 years ago, but had never actually done! We collected a whole bucket of shells, including 14 conch shells (!)--a truly unprecedented number for us. We also found: the leg from a blue crab (these are a bright royal blue, truly lovely to see) a fish skeleton, completely picked clean, and two really nasty fish heads--I guess they had been bait at one time, but one of them had been gotten by seagulls and was just unspeakable.

On the playground on the way out, Matt was pushing Emma in the swing. She was trying to tell him some long story--but so was Julia, and he couldn't understand either one of them. Finally, she shouted to Julia: "Jooya, you're instracting me!" (distracting in 3 year old....) It was very funny.

Today we headed to the beach with Jenn, her dad, and her kids. Since they live in the western part of NC, they haven't seen the ocean since leaving Long Island back in December (or really, I guess, since the last summer) so they really wanted to go. It was just like old times--us in the chairs with the little ones digging and sitting in the big bucket, the boys running, splashing in the surf, building roads and forts, and the three older girls swimming nearly the whole time (though they did end up sunbathing near the end of the afternoon--yikes!) We got to talk and talk, and yes, there were interruptions from the kids as there always are, but it was nice just to be with her--the rest of this vacation of hers has been so busy that we haven't gotten to just sit much at all. The girls are downstairs right now, watching movies and giggling, and will probably be up till 3 am like last sleepover.....it will be hard to say goodbye again after tomorrow's party, that's for sure.

Speaking of which, I have 36 cupcakes waiting to be frosted in the kitchen for said party...so I will sign off now. I will try to post more this week than I did last week!

Jen

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