BEACH!

We were very fortunate to be invited to use a house in Aptos, CA (near Santa Cruz)! We had a blast. Jared's favorite part was watching Hannah make sand angels and dragging herself across the sand! He also loved seeing how Hudson has progressed since last summer. Then he was afraid of the water and this year he loved to stand in it when the waves came! My favorite was along the same lines. It is SO MUCH easier with older kids at the beach. I couldn't believe it. I could just follow the kids around and watch if I wanted. They don't need me to entertain them 100% of the time. We are in an inbetween stage as far as safety. We've past the stage of them wandering near the water and bobbling in by accident. And, we're before the swimming in the ocean stage. So, this trip was so fun and even relaxing for me!

We did have a little scare. I had just looked at the kids, you know how moms try to know where the little ones are at all times. Then, I went back to a funny part in a book that I was reading out loud to our family that was with us. When I looked up again I could only see Hannah. We all stood up and frantically started looking for Hudson. Someone saw him running down the beach. He got pretty far in only a minute. He was running non-stop! Daddy went after him. He had been chasing a bird. He, like any other 2.5 year old boy, can get REALLY focused on ONE thing at a time. For this time, it was a bird. I imagine as he would scare it it would just fly a little ways and land again farther down the beach. Man, that was one of those moments I'll never forget! It was scary.

Praise the Lord that it was a short time and one of us could still see him running.