Tutus and Trains: Ahhhhhh, the beach

This year has been jam packed with hard work and more hard work. When Sofia turned six weeks old, Chris started working on a project in New England that lasted four months. Not only was he away, but he was working long hours that often spilled into our cherished weekends. Not to mention the extra work that was piled onto my stay-at-home mom plate. But through prayer and stubbornly positive attitudes, we made it through and I think Chris can even say he enjoyed it (a little.)

One thing we've really been looking forward to is Chris's sabbatical. Every seven years he earns a month off from work to rejuvenate or learn something new. It's been ten years and he's finally taking it. His last deadline came in perfect timing, leaving us just one week to go to the beach before Lucas started school. Thanks to a great recommendation from our friends the LeBlancs, we found a perfect, affordable place on the gulf, Navarre Beach, FL.

We've never been to the beach for a whole week before and I was concerned it might be too long. But I think we could have added on another week. Sure, we still had to chase Sofia everywhere, and do a bit of cooking and cleaning. But the hours spent sunning and diving into waves was thoroughly cleansing and enlivening.

All of us would go down mid-morning and put Sofia in the pack-and-play. Then we would swim and play nearby while she entertained herself for an hour or so. After that she was ready for a dip in the water (DEFINITELY a beach and water baby!) Soon it was nap time so I'd rinse her off in the beach shower and carry her naked little bottom up for a nap in our fifth-floor condo.

Once she was down I'd grab a book and sit outside with my wet, lemon-juiced hair hanging over the balcony rail. I snagged peeks at my boys playing on the beach. Usually it was Chris floating in a raft over the calm waves and a wiry blue-goggled boy jumping the same waves and squealing with delight. They'd take breaks from the water to dig holes and find seashells. We brought home a lot of seashells.

Later in the day, Chris and Lucas would go back out to catch crabs or shoot a pump rocket high into the air. Sometimes we'd go out after dark and scrape our fingers through the wet sand to see the plankton light up. And once, Lucas got to reel in a fish with his new friend Caleb's Dad's fishing rod. He got the biggest catfish of the day (I didn't even know there were saltwater catfish.) Caleb's dad then tried to catch a shark with a large bloody fish but we couldn't stay around long enough to see if it happened (he was doubtful anyway.)

This was the routine, day after day. Only once did we break it to go to the Naval Aviation Museum in nearby Pensacola. There Lucas got to sit in a Blue Angel, see an IMAX film about Blue Angels, see a couple of them practicing live outside and buy a die-cast, made-in-China model of one.

One of Lucas's favorite parts of the trip was running around at an Alabama rest area. Here he nibbled a graham cracker into the shape of South Carolina. ("You know, that state that's next to Georgia.")