Labor Day Weekend

This weekend we took the girls to Grammy and Pa’s beachhouse in Galveston.

Shelby is really starting to like the beach now that she can get around and be a part of all the action! Saturday morning we took all the kids down to the beach for some fun!

Shelby and Caroline

June runs straight for the water as soon as we get there. I remember doing this when I was little. It was like I just couldn’t wait a second for my feet to make contact with the water and run in to my knees, jump, splash, repeat!!

Shelby was shoveling sand into her mouth until Grammy went bak to the house to get her passy!

Caroline was a a speed course towards the water, she would I don’t think her little hands feet stopped once the entire morning. We kept pulling her back again and again and straight back into the water she would go!

 

What is it about my kids and eating sand????  

Corbin and June had fun playing on the sand dunes

They made slides by scooting down on their bottoms…..ummm can you imagine the result of this process, two words, saggy britches!!

  

After lunch the kids pulled out the extra mattresses and ran and jumped to their hearts delight for a good two hours!!

I love the sound of three giggling toddlers and two laughing babies, it makes my heart smile!! Life is full of simple pleasures!

“Hi there, pick me up!”

Sweet siblings!

Leche!!!

Snuggle time!!

After the kids wore themselves out on the mattresses, I filled up the baby pool for more fun!

The weather was soooo nice so we all sat downstairs on the patio while the kids played with chalk!

 

 

All the big kids layed down while Grammy traced them! They love being traced and decorating their outlines!

We love you Grammy!!

Shelby Loves her Aunt Sara!

 

Seems like she should have grown out of eating random things by age two…guess not!!

 

Then the kids pulled out the fish that Jimmy caught and played with them! EEEEWWW

I love how Claire is in the background realizing how nasty her hands smell after holding the dead,frozen, slimy, fish.

“FISH!!”

If you look closely you can see that yes, in fact, his nails ARE painted. No comment!

relaxing

Grammy marked and labeled everyone’s height on the post. Claire marked them again after that.

Later that evening we went back to the beach.

      So much fun! Everyone ready for dinner?! We had such a full day at the beach. We came back yesterday, tired and ready to prepare for another long week! Thanks Grammy and PA for a fun weekend and all the delicious food!!

Caroline Louise

Not a Normal Post

This weekend was unforgettable and in some ways life changing. We arrived Friday night in Galveston. The picture above was taken from the car right before we arrived at the beach house. The sunset was so beautiful!

Saturday we decided to go to Moody Gardens Aquarium. We were driving into town on a back road called Stuart road. At 1:46 pm right after we turned on “dead man’s curve” by the sports complex at 7 mile road, we saw a woman in the road standing next to a wrecked motorcycle flagging us down. We slowed the car to find a scene straight out of a movie. “Lord Jesus send your angels”, I immediately began to pray. The woman was in shock and Jimmy and I quickly realized the man who was driving the bike just moments before had suffered a massive head injury and was crushed and severely injured  lying next to the bike right in front of us. I called 911 “ there’s been a horrible motorcycle accident off 7mile road at dead man’s curve and we need an ambulance NOW,” I said. “ We’re on our way,” replied the man. I was shaking all over and had a feeling in my stomach like I had swallowed a ten pound weight. We couldn’t tell if he was alive at that point. The woman had been wearing a helmet and appeared to be unharmed.  As other people came running to the scene with towels and the paramedics arrived, Jimmy and I got back in the car and decided to leave since we were only blocking traffic and weren’t of any help anymore. “ I love you, Jimmy” I said as we drove away, my eyes filled with tears. The whole thing had shocked Jimmy and I right out of our Moody Gardens bound sneakers and caused a permanent sobering and nausious feeling for the rest of the weekend as so many thoughts of life and death flashed before our eyes.

Did he know Christ?

I prayed that at some point in his life, someone had told him about God’s plan of salvation, knowing that his decision to accept or reject Christ as his personal Lord and Savior would eventually and very unexpectedly at 1:46 pm on July 31 2010, be the very most important decision he had ever made and the single deciding factor of where his soul would go for the rest of eternity forever and ever….

 ^“9That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”      Romans 10:9,10

If you are reading this blog and you have any questions about that please call me right now. Don’t even wait.

 

When we got to Moody Gardens we found ourselves at one of the first exhibits, the seals. It was so dark, and beautiful and watching the seals swim around the huge tank was so calming. We pulled the stroller up the the tank and Jimmy sat with June in his lap, me on a bench behind them and we just sat there. Watching and thinking.

We sat…..

and sat….

and sat, and sat and sat. As people came, took pictures, and left, and more people came and went and came and went. It was as though the weight of our hearts had physically slowed us down, as thoughts just raced around and around in our heads. We sat there for quite a while.

 

June spotted Dori below and was so excited. I ended up carrying Shelby instead of using the stroller. It suddenly wasn’t a hassle to have to carry her as I just wanted to hold her close to me forever.

June was exhausted and passed out before we left the parking lot. The rest of the weekend went on as usual and we left Galveston with a little bit greater appreciation for each other, for our blessings, our children, our life, our family and loved ones, and a more eternal perspective. I think about what on Earth am I doing for heaven’s sake..literally?