Sand & Sun

The kids and I just got back from a really fun morning at the beach. A friend of ours has a beach house about 45 minutes away, and she invited folks over for some sand and sun. The boys had an absolute blast... they were pretty much constantly running around, jumping in the waves, and playing in the sand. There were ten kids in our group, so I think it was just heaven for Brandon and Parker to have that many kids around to play with. As for me, I love the beach more than I can say. I just feel so happy and at peace there. I would love to own a beach house one day. Even though the water was COLD, I went for little swim just so I could feel the waves under me. Really, it was just a delightful morning.

We also went to the beach yesterday, but not the ocean, silly. Just a local lake. Chad was actually out playing frisbee golf, something he hadn't done in approximately 12 years, so the boys and I joined Jen and her family for some fun on the lake. Jen's husband was a champ and watched all 4 of our kids for a while so that Jen and I could get in a training swim. In the afternoon, our friends Sheri-Lynne and Paul had us over dinner... supposed to be an outdoor affair, but some crazy storms forced us inside. Still fun though, as they are great company. We have had some crazy storms in general this summer. It definitely feels like the storm patterns have changed alot over the past few years - I'm definitely seeing the global warming impact at play. I feel like we have these very intense pop-up thunderstorms almost every afternoon, which is usually not typical for around here... at least not in my 16 years experience. Course, I gotta say that I'm not complaining if global warming could nudge the winter temperatures around here up a few degrees. Or 20.