The Last Swim

The last swim of the week is always such a melancholy moment.  We leave the slivery-smooth water knowing that this is the last time, that there will be no more  sand and no more water and no more waves.  All that remains is to pack the car and drive home, a drive no longer shortened by the anticipation of the week to come.

Life the way we live it here could not be sustained; we must return to reality—to reasonable bedtimes and responsible work schedules and rational portion sizes.  But oh, how we will miss our life at the beach. 

Already, even before we drive away, we are plotting and planning for next year.  What meals went well, what games we forgot, what week will work best.  And for the next 51 weeks we’ll smile every time we think back to our time together this year, and forward to our week next year.

Dance Party

After a day of swimming and playing with legos last week, the kids ended up having a dance party in the living room.  They each picked a song and took turns leading the dancing.  They were having fun and it was such fun to watch!  I snuck in and videotaped them for a while…

Luscious Peach Pie

 

Amy came to swim with me one day last week and saw my boxes of peaches, so she sent me this recipe.  It’s totally delish.  Russ prefers it with a graham cracker crust, but I like it much better with a traditional crust.

 

Georgia Peach Pie

1 cup orange juice
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon butter
3 tablespoons cornstarch
5-6 peaches

Cook first 4 ingredients until mixed.  Make a paste with cornstarch and water.  Add to mixture.  Stir over heat til thick.  Cool.  Pour over sliced peaches and crust.

 

Enjoy!!!

Starry Starry Night (with addendum)

I wear my glasses in the hot tub at night so that I can see the stars.  I lay back in the water and watch the sky, enjoying the nighttime beauty and (always) hoping that I’ll see a shooting star.  A few nights ago when we got into the hot tub we could see only a few stars in the sky, but as we sat and talked more and more appeared.  We were fortunate enough to see quite  a few shooting stars (one very bright), and by the time we were tired and ready for bed the sky was filled with stars. 

As I got ready for bed I thought about what a good metaphor this is for Heavenly Father’s plan.  When we first look at it, we can see only the brightest points.  Sometimes if we look away and then look back our eyes are hardly able to see anything, and it takes a while for our (spiritual) eyes to readjust.  But if we keep looking, if we focus and concentrate, then we see more and more and more-- until finally we are truly able to see the immense vastness of His plan in all it’s beauty.

 

***I love Lindsay’s comment that if you are surrounded by too much interfering light you can’t see the stars anymore.  This is so true in our spiritual lives as well—there are many forms of interference that keep us from being able to see Heavenly Father’s plan.  Sometimes we’re around a lot of interference and we can’t see it at all, and sometimes we’re around just a little bit of interference that keeps us from being able to see the immensity and depth of the plan.  When I read her comment my first thought was “yeah, this is why I go to the beach, so that I can see the stars better.”  But then I realized that this is a true principle—that we simply must find places and times in our lives when we are not affected by ‘interfering light’ so that we are able to see more clearly.

Twilight Memory

We are usually in the beach house at sunset; cleaning up from dinner, playing games with the kids, eating dessert.  Tonight I was taking pictures of Cindy Lynn and Mahon out on the beach as the sun was setting.  As soon as we were done I ran back to the house and put on my swimsuit, then ran back outside to join Russ, Ken, and a few of the kids in the water. 

I wish I had a picture of it.  The ocean was a dusty jade and felt like warm silk.  The just-setting sun was shining pink across the water between the waves.  And the waves were absolutely perfect for boogie boarding. We ran into the water again and again, waiting to catch the perfect wave and then ride it right up onto the sand, laughing from the exhilaration of the moment.

We normally don’t swim at sunset.  Conventional wisdom says that sharks feed at dawn and dusk, and so we usually do our swimming earlier. 

But tonight…

Tonight we threw caution to the winds and swam in the twilit ocean. 

 

And it was beautiful.

Inadequate Accommodations

Josh was really kind and let Jason use his more accessible bed/bedroom in the days right after his surgery.  There were several other places that Josh could have slept, but instead he chose the sofa in the family room.  Which was a great choice until the next morning, when the obstacle course races resumed…

Obstacle Course

One night I was working on dinner and the kids starting running through the kitchen.  I was talking on the phone and might not have even noticed, except that they kept coming down the back stairs and through the kitchen door, leaving it open.  Each time I closed the door so that we wouldn’t lose all of the cold air, and each time someone opened it and ran through the kitchen again.  By the time I was off the phone dinner was ready and I called the kids to the table without finding out exactly what they were doing.

The next morning, though, they were at it again.  When I asked they said that they were running an obstacle course, and timing each other.  I quickly understood that the obstacle course included running up the front stairs, through the playroom filled with all of Jason’s mission paraphernalia, and down the back stairs.  I figured I should figure out exactly what they were doing and and maybe take some pictures.

Much to my surprise the living room sofas were also… involved in the obstacle course. 

Here you can see what happened next.

And that, my friends, was the end of the obstacle course!