Beach Days

It's wild how when I last wrote I was happy for summer vacation, and now, just a few short months later my kids are two weeks into school! After school activities are pretty much in full swing (just waiting for Landon's soccer practice to start), and I'm pretty much overwhelmed. We try not to over schedule our kids, but even with them all doing one thing it's so busy. Ainsley tried out for her middle school swim team last week and will now be swimming every day. It's so good for her to get all that stored up energy out, but it poses a lot of extra driving. Fortunately she has a friend on the team who lives close enough to us that carpooling is an option. Kaylee joined a Judo club and is now learning how to throw people (among other things) two days a week. Her Sensei told Chris that she'd eventually be able to throw an adult. Kaylee's excited for the day when she can throw her own dad. Landon watched her sparring practice on Friday and decided he wants to take Judo lessons, but he's already signed up for soccer. Maybe after soccer season. The girls will continue with piano lessons too. No one is forcing them to take lessons, so I told them that if they choose to keep playing they need to commit to practicing without complaint. They've promised to practice without giving me grief, so we'll see . . .

Summer was way too short, but we enjoyed every minute of it. Before we traveled to California for the month of July we spent a lot of time at our pool because, honestly, what else is there to do outside during a Texas summer? The kids and I spent four weeks in California, and Chris met us there for our last week. I always feel bad leaving Chris for so long, but he insists it's okay every year. I think it's because he knows how hard Texas summers are on me, and he knows I still miss living away from our family like crazy. We just have so much fun with them!

This year we spent a lot of time at the beach. We go to the beach every summer, but this time we went more often. Ainsley and Kaylee have "tried" boogie boarding before, but this summer was different. We rented wet suits several times, and they really got wet this year. Landon didn't want to rent a wetsuit, but he went in the water anyway. I know we used to swim in the Pacific without wetsuits as kids, but seeing him splashing around in that frigid water gave me chills. He'd come out with blue lips and shivering. He loved it though! Uncle John came with us on all of our beach trips and was awesome helping the girls in the water. 

On one of our beach trips, Landon made a friend. They were both eating bags of Doritos in the parking lot when we were unloading and became instant friends, haha. On another beach trip, Chris came along. The girls wanted to show him their moves. I had what might have been my once in a lifetime chance to swim with dolphins in the wild on this day. My mom and I had just gotten back from renting wetsuits when a huge pod of dolphins came swimming right along shore. I threw my wetsuit on and went running for the water when my mom yelled that there was a giant hole in the back of the wetsuit. I didn't care. I was going to swim with those dolphins. She ended up convincing me that since it was a rental suit we really needed to take it back. By the time we returned the dolphins were gone and never came back. Foiled! I'm now thinking about purchasing a wetsuit to leave in California. Missing the chance to swim with dolphins aside, our beach days were loads of fun. We love the beach!