Posts Tagged ‘beach’

Not A Beach Vacation But Better Than No Vacation 2018

Sunday, September 30th, 2018

Our beach vacation got canceled this year because of a hurricane. I was VERY angry about it, that vacation means a lot to us as a family and as a friend group (we go with two friends from high school and my college freshman roommate). We didn’t want to completely cancel our time off though, and since E hadn’t been to the lake house yet this year we hung out in Virginia. It was a little colder for my taste, but it was still fun. Our best Navy friends came to hang out from Virginia Beach so Caroline got to see her favorite person. We even did a grown-ups only day in NoVa with most of the friends I was supposed to see at the beach, so we don’t have to wait another year to see my BFFs. It’s hard to complain about a lake vacation, especially now that we’re home and I’m just looking back on the pictures.

The Gift of September

Friday, September 7th, 2018

Every year in New England, on September 1st, we all prepare for fall. It’s September. It’s Fall. It’s time to get out our cardigans and boots, sleep with the windows open and four blankets, pick apples, drink lattes, and throw around as many decorative gourds as we can.

And every year, on September 1st, we remember that it’s actually still summer.

But our surprise is a gift – doing fun summer stuff in September feels like cheating. I’m swimming in the ocean in September! (And don’t tell anyone the ocean is actually crazy warm in September, or we’ll have to share the beach with too many people.) I’m wearing sundresses in September! We’re having ice cream for dinner in September! Let’s jump in the car after school and do ALL of that on a Thursday!

All the things I was tired of – sand in my car, washing a million towels, late bedtimes, no plans for dinner, car naps – are once again charming and fun. I can sit on a towel by the ocean wondering why we don’t go to the beach EVERY day with absolutely no irony. It’s like my brain was wiped clean on the first day of the month and I’m ready for summer all over again.

The most pleasant part of the whole thing is in a few days (a week, maybe three if we’re lucky) it actually WILL be fall. I’ll vacuum all the sand out of my car and deflate all the floaties until next year. We will all start wearing pants and I’ll buy 3 new striped shirts. We’ll eat apples and chowder and cider donuts and the bakery in Mystic will smell like pumpkin and cinnamon instead of lavender and vanilla. We get our bonus, stolen summer right before the very best part of New England.

This is why we’re still here.

Fun Mom

Monday, May 7th, 2018

I am sticking with my theory that if we stay really super busy all the time that this underway will pass quickly.

I REALLY hope it’s working for the kids because all it’s doing for me is making me exhausted. I live with a constant vague sense of dread that I’m forgetting something or that we’re late for something or that I’m supposed to be somewhere else.

My iPhone seems to agree with me, because every 2 minutes the little alert pops up that says “blah blah number of minutes to get home” and offers me directions back to my house. Usually, it’s offering me directions to ballet or swim or cheer or karate or whatever else we’re supposed to be doing. I find that very helpful, if somewhat creepy since I never specifically told my phone I was going those places. It just learned them. But constantly telling me I should be headed back to the house is freaking me out. WHAT AM I LATE FOR, IPHONE?

Yesterday we were 15 minutes late to Caroline’s mandatory extra ballet recital because Lincoln lost his shoes at our morning playdate. The good news is we did eventually find them, but every single time we need to get from point A to point B something like that happens.

It’s really hard to be Fun Mom when you also have to be Find Your Shoes Mom and No You Can’t Have Freeze Pops For Breakfast Mom and Stop Talking And Go To Bed Mom. I want to have ice cream for dinner too. I don’t want to spend the afternoon putting away laundry and changing sheets and doing dishes. Fun Mom doesn’t have to do that stuff. But there isn’t anyone else, so right now I’m Fun Mom and Regular Mom, which means I go to bed at 9:30 and haven’t seen a grown-up TV show in three weeks.

But we have been having a lot of fun.

p.s. It was about 73 degrees at the first beach and 65 the second time. I am raising hardy New England children.

 

My Week(352) in iPhone Photos

Tuesday, August 15th, 2017

My husband just got back from severals weeks underway on his submarine, so the amount of laundry in my house went from “a lot but almost manageable” to “mountains”. I’m going to catch up on these posts in the moments when I can’t handle folding one more plain white undershirt.

Sunday:

SUPER PROUD 3 YEAR OLD

Really excited about his insane milkshake

Making the exact same face as Evan above

Monday:

He loves this, I swear

Upsidedown Lincoln

Lego Batman on repeat

Tuesday:

Sunflower day

Family picture

Ready for the cow train

Wednesday:

I’m signing him up for gymnastics

Friends who love your baby are the best

Thursday:

The ocean

Looking for rocks

Weirdos

Friday:

The kids were fascinated with this thing at Stop & Shop

More lake

Finn really likes Cheetos

Saturday:

Pretending I’m a good Navy spouse by making calendar pages

In between laundry loads I also managed to order the week’s groceries and plan the kids fall activities schedule with reminders to register them for various activities as soon as they open. I still need to find Lincoln a morning activity besides swim (the gymnastic class I wanted is only in the afternoon) to help him get some of his wiggles out before afternoon pre-k. The plan is to make all four children as tired as possible so they go to bed by 7:30 every night. A+ PARENTING.

My Week(343) in iPhone Photos

Tuesday, May 30th, 2017

We have less than 2 weeks left until Disney World and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to hold off telling the kids for much longer. I’m so bad at surprises.

Sunday:

Really excited to be at Lake Compounce

Evan’s face before we went on the roller coaster. His after face was not happy.

Caroline’s face all day

Monday:

Once Finn is walking these two are going to be double trouble

Evening yoga

Tuesday:

Are you sure this is breakfast? Why is it on the floor?

Couch naps

My favorite child

Wednesday:

You can see our rainbow umbrella is his eyes

Skeptical of the art show

Art show snacks

Thursday:

I gave him nutella, it was a mistake

Now he’s trying to eat his siblings

Peace Out

Friday:

How I feel about getting changed in front of people too

They REALLY love yoga

Saturday:

Took our cousin to the beach

And to the splash pad

 

And taught him yoga

I don’t know why I’m missing so many photos from this week. I THOUGHT I took lots. I’ll try to do better this week, although so far today I’ve taken zero and it’s 2 pm. But that’s because I’ve been listening to podcasts on my phone while I try to get the entire house cleaned and organized and back to the almost-always-ready-for-company level of tidy that I had achieved at the beginning of the year.

In other news, do you follow my 365 project on Facebook or Instagram yet? I figured I should put those photos someplace where people can see them, since my photography is my main claim to blogging fame (very very very tiny amounts of blogging fame) these days.