Murphy's Law

I confess. I've been blog-slacking. Isn't this always the way it is with me these days? I get so caught up worrying about posting pictures for you that I never get around to really even writing anything lately.

Not too much to say, not too much going on lately. The kids have been fun but with the weather being so incredibly hot (for us), we haven't wanted to be outside too much. We'll hit a park for a couple hours in the morning, but play inside when the sun gets strong in the afternoon. That's about the time the kids have begun their "let's make Mom crazy" antics and I'm usually a nut-case by the time Chris gets home from work. All of this turned around last week when a friend suggested we meet her and her daughter at a man-made lake which has a nice beach. I thought "what the heck?" and loaded the kids up, giving them a big lecture about how they need to listen. I also told them that since they both like to swim, they would both have to keep life jackets on while in the water, which they didn't mind. Now, I should mention that I haven't brought the kids to the beach in....a year and a half. Literally. The only beach they have been to during that time was the beaches we visited while on vacation. I have never had the guts to take both kids to the beach by myself so I was trying to be extra brave about it. There were two reasons why I had never brought them. First, they have always been ages that were hard to handle. One child would run one way while the other runs the opposite direction---not a good scenario when you're next to a large body of water. The second reason is my red-headed daughter and her ability to burn in the sun. That fair skin of hers makes me skiddish in sunny places, no matter how much sunblock I apply. So, on this day, the poor girl was not only covered with a bathing suit and a swim T-shirt thing, but also her life jacket, and a little white face since I didn't rub all of her sunscreen in there. I let Caleb apply his own sunscreen which turned out to be fine since his body was mostly covered by his life jacket. How did the beach trip go? Fantastic! Caleb and Hannah were excellent listeners and it was "the best day ever" in all of our opinion. So much so that I am looking forward to taking them to beaches like this on a much more frequent basis. However, next time I go, someone remind me to sunblock ME. I not only burned the bottom of my feet by running on the hot sand. I also burned THE HECK out of my back. Two days later, I still make "ow ow!" noises as Chris tries to apply aloe where I can't reach and I have been waking up every half-hour at night because lying down is too painful. I guess the person I should have been worried about is ME! Who knew?