Beach Bums

Ever since Jeremy and I went on our cruise in March we have wanted to take the girls to the beach for a family vacation. Our girls love water and they love our sandbox. No better place to combine those two favorite things than the beach. We decided to take an extended weekend and go to California before "Baby Brother" comes. We were pretty excited and the girls seemed pretty excited as well. We invited my family to join and so Grandma and Grandpa Williams and Aunt Kristin graciously humored us.

The girls did great on the trip over there and despite getting to our hotel pretty late Makayla was just elated to be in a hotel room and get her own queen-sized bed and couldn't go to sleep for the next hour.

Natty was more than happy that her pack and play was in a new place but exhaustion got the best of her and she was out like a light. The next morning it was beach time, here's the gang. Have you ever thought that your children would just love something and they didn't? Well, it happened to us, AGAIN. (This is one of the reasons we haven't gone to Disneyland. Too expensive of an experiment to see how loud Makayla will cry to meet the real Tinkerbell or how long Natalie can scream on the Dumbo ride.) It was an overcast day, warm, but overcast. And as many of us know from experience the Pacific Ocean is FRIGID. Natalie did well in the water but this particular beach washed in a ridiculous amount of kelp and it rubbing against her legs freaked her out. She didn't want anything to do with the water after that, oh, unless she was held above it. Plus, she didn't like walking on the sand, always wearing her water shoes. Weird. Natalie did enjoy making sand castles up by the water though. Makayla was frightened by the waves and spent most of her time rolling around in the sand by our beach umbrellas. She didn't want anything to do near that water. She did enjoy Kristin burying her in the sand though and riding her new big girl bike that she has been earning the last month and a half on the beach sidewalks. After many attempts and two days at the beach trying to get our children to like what we like about the beach, we threw our hands up in the air and had a parenting "ah-ha" moment. I realized that my children were enjoying the beach in their own way (as strange as that way was to me) and to not stress out over the fact they didn't like it the way I liked it. I have a feeling that is going to be a recurring theme in our lives. We can only give them experiences and they will choose what they will do with those experiences. Such a tough but a vital thing to learn as a parent, not to get stressed out and discouraged if a child does not respond to something the way we would like. I know this a completely a naive statement because I have not felt the heartbreak of a wayward child. However, our Father in Heaven only prompts, teaches, and directs and yet never forces us to do anything. We know His heart breaks with all the wicked choices that are made, but he never forces his children to live the way he does. What a hard, but beautiful lesson to learn even on a smaller scale. I love my girls. I love the fact that when you ask Makayla what her favorite thing was about the trip, she replies, "Taking naps in the hotel. I love staying in the hotel." The simplest things make her happy. Natalie was just happy to have her Mommy, Daddy, grandparents, and aunt wrapped around her little finger for 3 whole days, and all that yummy junk food. They loved the trip in their own little ways and I love the fact that I had my eyes opened to becoming a more understanding mother. Guess you could call our family vacation a success.

By the way we did do some other fun things than just the beach:

Downtown Disney shops--The Atlanta Braves vs. the LA Dodgerss game (The Braves won)--