The Beach!

The annual Buckingham, Moore, and Everette beach trip took place last week! It was so great just to relax by the ocean and to be with family. Wait, scratch that.. it was great to be with family, but there was very little relaxing for ole Aunt 'chelle.

Anna.. LOVES ME (I do believe her mom eggs it on so she can do some relaxing herself. haha). Of course... really, what kid doesn't love me... I'm such a natural with the wee ones. Anna and I played and played and played and played some more... mostly with princesses... (oh how grateful I am to have a boy). One night Anna did get mad at me... because I had accidentally left Jasmine in the other condo (later to realize Jasmine had actually been buried in Joshua's diaper bag, so this llama drama could have bee avoided if I just dug a little deeper in the bag.. oops.) No worries, her anger did not last and I was quickly back in good graces. Anna is a true child of the Everette's... she had no fear of the ocean and was quickly riding the waves... this basically meant she sat on a raft way out in the ocean while we held on to her tightly. (before you ask, no life jacket was worn.. i know... i know.. no need for preaching.. we Everette's believe in the old sink or swim method). Even when she would get cold or salt water in her eyes she did not want to go back in. A true beach bum in the making!

My son on the other hand.. hails from his father's line.. a true Midwestern who would not even place his toes in the water. And he would wail as though being tortured if we dared to make him walk on the sand. Luckily, he did enjoy sitting and playing in the sand.. go figure. So he spent most of the week filling buckets with sand. As this post will quickly become too long if I include everything.. I will give an update of Liam's progress with the ocean on his birthday post... and yes, praise the Lord, there was progress.

And the forgotten child.. Joshua, who is 15 mns old and the cutest little dude, has zero fear. I have never seen a child fall over more and not even notice. With the water he would just walk right on out not even caring if a wave knocked him over.... needless to say someone had to watch that little guy at all times.

As for what the adults did.. mom worshipped the sun god, dad made friends with everyone sitting around us, Dawn read her book (and helped peel Anna away from me at times), Anthony juggled Josh, Pol played in the sand with Liam, and I - as if you don't already know, played with Anna and body surfed during her "rest time".

The Moores did leave Tuesday night, so I had Wed and Thursday to relax... in which I took the time to learn how to skim... by the way, there is a reason you only see 12 yr old boys doing this. I was terrible at skimming.. I think I only achieved actual skimming once. Oh.. and I re-read HP6... will save my review on the movie for another post as well.

OH... and let me also point out this is the very first year ever that I DID NOT GET BURNED!!! If you listen closely you can hear my freckles cheering!

Many pictures to come... will break them up over the next few days so as to not overwhelm.

Here is a sneak peek: