What a day, What a week

The kids have been off all week so we spent two great days at the beach and for some reason today, our first real day home all week, they have been catching up on their bad behavior. It was like they stored it within them while we were away and then they could not retain it any longer. So Leah and Sam are grounded for a couple days which resulted in tears from Leah and the statement, "I do not want to be grounded. I am surrounded by temptations." Emma chose to be sick while we were away which resulted in two sleepless nights for myself but she miraculously recovered after a good nights sleep in her own bed. The kids were sheer joy to watch on the beach, they built sandcastles, jumped over waves, and above all they were kids being kids.

The wildflowers on the drive to the coast were breath taking. Although I prefer doing the drive with the least amount of stops possible I could not resist stopping and enjoying this eye banquet.


Sam is at the delightful age of having to do a silly pose for the camera every single time.

I asked Sam to run down the beach so that I could take his picture. Well the little blessing took off running and just kept on running. It was one of those mother moments where you have to take a min and analyze your priorities. Do I leave the two girls and take off after the boy to strangle him or do I stay with the two girls and hope no one grabs a cute freckled face boy who is wandering alone down a beach. Or do I start packing up all our stuff, grab the girls and start heading to the car in the hope that he will look back and think that I would seriously leave him and come back. I opted for my last choice and it worked, as sure enough my little blessing saw me starting to pack up and head to the car, he turned on his heal and came back with the biggest grin on his face only to say, "Did I run far enough? Did you get the picture?"

We took Elana out for dinner for her 21st birthday and of course had to get her a girly drink.

We even got to go a nature walk in Oceano since the tide was "all the way in, almost to the parking lot. Then on to see Yoel and Matt. Wii was a big thing for Sam since they have different games than us and Yoel was cool and made a fire out back so the kids could have smores together. And of course Leah's biggest highlight is riding her favorite horse Zubi who unfortunately is getting old and is on his last leg. But Leah got her joy and so did Sam and Emma but nothing compared to the joy Leah experiences. Well as usual I took a lot of pictures which results in a lot of pictures posted but like Safta always told me, words are wonderful but a picture can cover a multitude of words. So here is my coverage of a multitude of words that summarizes our wonderful week at the coast.