hold on tight....

the winds picked up on our second night in seaside. 

enough so that we thought maybe a storm was blowing in. for some people, that might sound horrible, but we had a really bad storm years ago while we were in seaside and it was magical. 

and the next day, the beach was a treasure trove of goodies.

 the wind blew even the shortest hair around, so we had fun with it.

and no storm showed up. just the winds.

our son has always been able to entertain himself. 

even as a small child, he could find something that would keep him occupied for hours. 

on our windy beach night, he found pieces of a mangled kite, still attached to a tiny piece of string and declared he wanted to "save it."  

he ran around with it, determined to keep in it the air. 

i ran around after him determined to get the kite pieces in focus. 

{like mother, like son}

this kid of ours cracked us up the whole trip. 

he's got a way with words and foreign accents and a laughter that comes from so deep inside, that it reaches out and grabs you when it finally reaches the surface.

this was our eating porch. 

the candles were provided for us and it was heavenly being able to enjoy our dinners there.

just one of the many reasons i love the beach....and the sand.

{no, we didn't build this}

our very own ninja warrior

{is anyone watching that show on tv?}

this was taken right before they left for dinner...the dinner that was followed by "the proposal."

most nights, after our last beach walk of the day, were followed by 

a few hours of television viewing, water to rehydrate and yawns.

this log has been swirling around on seaside's beach for months. 

sometimes it's dry and on the beach. other times the tide has taken it out a bit and it's wet.

it now has a very special meaning, as it's where the actual proposal took place.

{obviously that night, it was dry}

*

thanks for saying that more beach photos are okay. 

i try to mix things up on my blog with a little bit of everything and tend to sway away from lots of personal photos of family, but this trip was so special to us and i know that many of our family members are reading along and loving being able to see everyone.

*

maybe i could start here....or there

i don't know were to begin

{eight hundred photos}

~

we just got back from an amazing week in seaside, florida. 

it was our first family vacation in five years. 

{college and pesky jobs had gotten in the way until now}

our daughter is engaged. 

we knew the proposal was going to happen while we were beachside, but she had no idea.

we feel so amazingly blessed to be adding this incredible man to our family.

the first sunset of the trip...shot with my lens baby.

our daughter's fiancé is so talented. just look at how he captured the sun for her.

our son on the other hand, decided he would try to eat it.

another lens baby photo

the cottage we rented this trip was perfect. 

four bedrooms. three and a half baths. five huge porches. four screened.

one with a fireplace. it was heavenly.

i couldn't resist sharing this photo. i have no idea what they were talking about, but i love that i caught a candid shot, which is hard to do in a house filled with adults.

here's our son again, with his beautiful girlfriend.

the "four kids" literally played the entire week.

first jumping shot of the week. 

here are two fun loving girls from ohio, who asked, "why the jumping shots" after they saw me taking jumping shots of another family on the beach. i told them it's just what i do. 

they said they would love to jump for me and wow, did they ever.

the first water activity for the kids was yolo boarding, otherwise known as

stand up paddle boarding or you only live once.

our daughter's fiancé was given the "hardest board" to use and he spent just as much time in the water as he did standing up...but he was determined to master it....and he finally did.

the rest of them made it look terribly easy...in a way that i thought "i could do that,"

but unfortunately i don't love the ocean "way out there." 

instead i like the first two feet of ocean, where the little kids play.

here's my hubby taking a kayak out to see the kids. he's pretty much a kid himself.

and after going into the ocean with his iphone in his pocket {something we had worried one of the kids would do} well, case and point.

~

i hope you can handle a few more beach photos over the next week or so....there's just so many that are dear to me and i really want to share them with all of you.

*

crayola bombs....

I am often accused of being childish.  I prefer to interpret that as child-like.  I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things.  I tend to exaggerate and fantasize and embellish.  I still listen to instinctual urges.  I play with leaves.  I skip down the street and run against the wind.  I never water my garden without soaking myself.  It has been after such times of joy that I have achieved my greatest creativity and produced my best work. 

~Leo F. Buscaglia~

Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. 

 ~Robert Fulghum~

Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon.  A happiness weapon.  A beauty bomb.  And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one.  

It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air.  Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas.  And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight.  Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in.  With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, 

amber and umber and all the rest.  

And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.  

~Robert Fulghum~

and remember....

take wrong turns. talk to strangers. open unmarked doors.

and if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they're doing.

do things without knowing how they'll turn out.

you're curious and smart and bored and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. there are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan.

to find them, look for tiny interesting choices.

and remember that you are always

making up the future as you go.

~randall munroe~

you'll thank yourself for it....

go be that starving artist you're afraid to be. open up that journal and get poetic finally. 

volunteer. suck it up and travel. you were not born here to work and pay taxes. 

you were put here to be part of a vast organism to explore and create. 

stop putting it off. 

the world has much more to offer than what's on fifteen televisions at tgi fridays. 

take pictures. 

scare people. shake up the scene. be the change you want to see in the world. 

you'll thank yourself for it.

~jason mraz~

a day with the grandparents....

it actually took six of us to get this bird feeder up. 

darn tree roots. they kept getting in the way.

my hubby grabbed his mom for a mother's day kiss...which caught her off guard 

and cracked us all up.

it took six of us {again} to hang a mirror at my parents house. good thing we found a stud.

well not in the wall, but the guy in the black shirt.....snort.

we're extremely blessed to have both of our parents just an hour away

and so lucky that they live just a few blocks from each other. it makes mother's day and all the other family celebrations so simple. 

when things are simple, fun comes easily.

~

shells and subwoofers....

how about those eyes. oh what a little heart breaker he's going to be someday.

{there's more of him and his family's photo shoot over here}

i'm writing this post before american idol is narrowed down to the final two tonight.

it better be joshua and phillip or i'm going to flip out.

jessica is great, but she's not an american idol in my book.

did i ever show you what i did with all my shells and driftwood from florida?

well now you know. i really should have put something next to my bowl of 

"beach heaven" so you could appreciate the size of it. it's huge.

{and yes, those are dishes drying back there, along with a half eaten apple. that's how i roll}

i love the fact that both of my kids live so close to us. they both stopped by today. one for lunch and the other to fix a subwoofer. umm, just to be clear, the subwoofer does not belong to my daughter.

not that daughter's can't own subwoofers...because they can...but the picture in my head of my daughter with a subwoofer in her trunk...well that just totally cracked me up.

*

just me, my mom and her boob on mother's day....

there is a day

when the road neither comes nor goes

and the way is not a way

 but a place.

wendell berry