Beach...

We just returned from 2 days travel and a 2 day stay at the beach. We had a fun time, but I will admit taking three toddlers to the beach without grandparents or a mommy's helper proved to be very challenging. I wish we had planned better and had one of the above with us. The “relaxation element” in going to the beach is completely removed when having to keep up with 3 toddlers with your main goal to be keeping them from drowning at all times. We had a stroke of luck in that Ava nor Zachariah would go anywhere near the ocean. Our 2nd stroke of luck was that Levi picked up swimming in his floatie with ease....and so we were able to let him swim while we each held onto one of the other two. I did get one trip to the pool alone while the kids were taking a nap. That was a real treat.....so my only “story” for the trip.
Before we left for the beach my mom ask me if I had “planned” a family portrait. I would have loved to have the perfect family photo...you know the ones with everyone in white, everyone looking at the camera, pretending they are having the best family vacation ever...thats the one I could have had in my mind. But I told my mom, no I am not going to plan anything. If it were planned and didn't work, I would have been upset, defeating the purpose of a fun family trip.. right?!! I did however take a white dress, a pale outfit for Ava, asked Gordon to grab a white shirt. I do not buy white for the boys anymore,so after getting to beach, I went to a local Walmart and grabbed 2 white tee shirts.Might as wel dress up and see if a picture presents itself..right!? So we decided to hit the beach right before sunset...we start to get dressed...the 2 tee shirts I had bought for the boys..were missing, must have gotten thrown out with the garbage. Oh well, I was determined not to let a “missing picture” ruin my time with my kids. So I put them in the only clean shirts left....and we went to dinner first. Within 5 minutes at dinner, Zach got ketchup all over his shirt....sigh (phrase stolen from my cousin, Jayna!).....Levi...drool all over his shirt....sigh....and a few minutes later...ketchup on ME! After dinner, we head out to the beach...to our right is a family in all white, snapping away....oh well, maybe next year. So I sit with Ava and Gordon takes out our camera and it won't work!!! Hence the fog look in the pictures. About that time another family comes up and starts snapping their pictures. The “mom” comes over and offers to take a picture of all of us. I tell her thank you and explained that our camera is broken. She then says to me, "I can take some with my camera and email them to you." Really?? You'd do that for me,a total stranger to you. Wow! Nice people are still in this world! So then she starts to take pictures and then says, "I love taking pictures and I want to make sure we get a good one." She probably took our picture for 10 minutes or so. After she finished our “photo shoot” our camera was working again. Gordon said it had something to do with the humidity. Anyway, she then took another 5 minutes or so of pictures with our camera. (The ones posted are from our camera..I haven't gotten hers yet!) So this just reminded me to thank the Lord for the small blessings in life...like the perfect family picture!