Beaches and Cousins and Fires, OH MY!

Posted by Chandra August 08, 2018

Beaches and Cousins and Fires, OH MY!

Reality is that on Saturday morning I got mad at Tanner and stormed out with the kids and took them to the beach all by myself. It was hot and crowded and we got hungry pretty quickly. Rayleigh thinks that everyone is her friend and that every adult male at the beach is her uncle and will take her swimming in the big waves. It was a juggle at first, trying to hold the baby and keep Rayleigh from grabbing all the men's hands. Parker boogie boarded and after a while Ray made friends with some girls making a sand castle. We stayed for about 2 hours and then left to go get lunch. We were at Strands and the funicular wasn't working so I was hauling everyone/everything back up those stairs when I saw Tanner come strolling down all casually. I was not happy to see him but grateful for the extra muscles to help me get the kids back up to the car. We grabbed some Wendy's and ate it in my parent's backyard (they were at a movie) and talked out our frustrations. It's hard having Tanner be gone all the time because we just don't get to communicate. I get used to doing MY own thing and he gets used to doing HIS own thing. And then BOOM, it's a Saturday when we don't really have any plans and it's like we don't know what to do with each other. We worked it out and all is well. These are the days......

Sundays are always good and I enjoy them oh so much. I had to take a picture of my 11 year old with my 11 month old.

On Monday, I took the kids on a hike after we grabbed some yummy bagels (we were going for Unicorn bagels but they didn't have them that day...) We strolled the trails behind the Alicia building and it was hot. It was flat so Parker rode his scooter and I pushed the baby but it was just miserably hot. We saw some cool baby pumpkins though! We went to Cami's pool for a little cousin playdate and it felt sooooo good to cool off. Then Jon dropped his kids off and I took them all home for a cousin sleep over! We passed by a horrific fire that some crazy man started to get revenge on his neighbor. (That backfired: no pun intended). The kids played and ate dinner and watched a movie and were all just perfect. Tanner got home at like 9:30pm and had no idea what was going on! ha ha Look Honey, we have 7 kids! They all played the next morning while Ella took a nap and then we all went down to Kari's for a pool date to see our cousin Chris and his daughter Anna who is Parker's age. My whole family was there (minus Josi, of course) and it was so fun begin all together! We went to my Mom's afterwards to eat dinner and get bedtime baths and jammies done. No one wanted to leave. My kids were all being so sweet and good! Maybe some day we can all live together! Best friends forever!

The next morning we woke up to the craziest looking sky. The sun glowed red and there was ash everywhere. There are fires blazing all over the western US and Northern CA is fighting the largest fire ever on record.

Pray for rain!