Anyone else a Brian Regan fan? Love that guy.

Our beach time was filled with many, many activities. This is kind of a change of pace from our day to day life. I’m mostly a “go play independently in the playroom while I do something else” kind of parent, and our kids are usually fine with that.

A vacation, however, calls for something a bit different. And that something (aside from the beach!) usually involved paint. Because, who doesn’t like to paint? It was one of my greatest joys from this past weekend to watch our friends step in and really engage with our kiddos. The inside (read: non-windy and non-sandy) activities really lent themselves well to getting to know the three most important people in our lives. 

And we got to know the Roppo kiddos even better. Which is something I’ve really missed since they moved away (Abbie, how can the twins possibly be 4?!)

Lest you think of me as some sort of super mom, not pictured is the disparity between the 30 minutes of prep time for each activity and the 3 minutes actually spent doing said activity. Note how there’s never all 3 of my children in one photo. Yeah, the other one or two were probably screaming or running around or being held by the other parent or ingesting the giant pile of sand by the back door. Additionally, all the meltdowns because “that paint is not pink enough!”. So, not pictured: reality.

Meltdowns and some failures aside, Andy and I made a conscious effort to make this a vacation more for them, and less for us. I think an expectation to have all the time we wanted to sleep, drink, read, relax, walk on the beach etc would have resulted in resentful adults and bored (read: crazy and whiny) children.

But, as usual when we prioritize correctly, God made time for us to also do those grown up vacation things. Next up: more beach pictures!

Because I seriously took about a million.