day 2

 This morning we got up and went to church.  It was packed.  All the vacationers I guess, there were people sitting in the foyer and in classrooms.  The meeting was nice.  I always enjoy singing patriotic songs and hearing the testimonies of brothers and sisters I have never met but who believe the same things I do, and feel the same way I do. 

 After church we came home, had lunch and then headed out for some "reverent" family time.  First we enjoyed the beach.  We saw dolphins and birds and Lu thought she saw a turtle.  We swam and filled our suits with sand.  We turned the girls into mermaids and played frisbee and caught waves.

 Then we came home and enjoyed the pool.

After dinner we will go back for a little more beach fun. 

We also painted our toes red, white and blue.  Made red, white and blue strawberries and some of us took naps.

update:
the beach in the evening was lovely.  Most of the crowds had gone as we set our chairs near the place where the waves would crash, but just out of reach.  I had put on my swimsuit, as a precaution, having learnt my lesson the night before when I thought I'd "just watch" and came home soaked and brought my chair and my book.  Instead of reading I just enjoyed being.  I watched the kids run to the water, squealing with delight.  Hannah and Mackenzie grabbed boogie boards and headed in fearlessly (we need more shark stories I see).  It was so cute to see them, two cousins.  One blond and slight, the other dark headed and more solid; both sweet as can be.   They were laughing and talking as they caught waves, or got pummeled into the sand depending.  Lucy also grabbed a board but she has a much more patient approach.  She knelt on the board, facing away from the water and waited, without even turning her head, for a particularly storng wave to race toward shore and give her a shove.  Earlier she did go out farther, and her efforts were rewarded with a mouthful of sand from the bottom  so for now she is content with the shallows.  She also kept occupied with digging for clams and building a castle and watching the pelicans fly. 

Ethan on the other hand prefers to go out without a board.  He is like a brown fish in the water, one minute I am watching his head bounce around, his eyes on the horizon, the next he dives down through the foam and all I can see is two feet as the rest of him cuts through the wave to the other side, or sometimes I see his head tuck down and his arms start to pull trying to catch the crest of a wave and ride it in.  He's gotten pretty good in just two days.  \

Of course our little dancing mermaid was there too.  Tatum, brave as long as her daddy or mama were holding her hands.  She would run out to the water, then turn and run back with a scream of delight coming out of her mouth, she prances when she runs in the carefree abandon that is the luxury of the very young.  Ethan spent some time building little castles for her to kick over, Lu found shells for her bucket and the big girls took her hands and jumped her over the waves.  She is a treasure to us all.. 

These children are such a joy, such a blessing. 

I also watched the waves, a sight I never tire of.  Their rythmic pounding is soothing.  There were tons of pelicans flying in formation, dipping and diving, looking for fish.  They swayed up and down like  merry go round horses following the bird in the front.  So graceful.
I dug my toes in the cool sand, felt the last rays of sunlight warm my shoulders.  What a perfect evening.