Catch up.

The weekend flew by, so I'm just now taking the time to write about it.

We had a restful Sabbath. It was fairly overcast, and we enjoyed that! I opted to keep Jason home for a morning nap and then just go for Sabbath School so he would be rested up for our beach trip on Sunday. Jason took a very good nap then, and also took another good one in the afternoon, so Eric and I were able to get some rest too!

Saturday evening I worked on putting together the food for the beach trip. I cut up all the fruit for the fruit salad and also made the macaroni salad. Eric had to do a flight first thing Sunday morning, so by doing the bulk of the work Saturday night I wasn't left with too much to do by myself the next day!

We woke up to gray skies and steady rain Sunday morning. Still, the weather looked like it would improve, so no need to cancel the beach trip. Eric made his flight just fine; had to fight some weather, but nothing major. The folks that had requested the flight were very appreciative.

The boys and I worked to get things ready for the beach. I wasn't saying anything to Jason about the day's plans, but then Jan came over and mentioned to him that we were going to the beach. Jason just started bouncing off the walls and running around screaming, "Going to beach!" I told him we had to wait for Daddy to get home first, so then he was running around yelling, "Daddy coming. Go to beach". I wasn't getting any peace, so thought I'd try using his excitement to my advantage. Jason's real good about taking a nap if he knows that we're going to do something fun when he wakes up. Oftentimes if I have trouble getting him to sleep in the afternoons I tell him, "Go to sleep. Daddy will be home soon and then you can have a motorbike ride." So he'll quickly calm down, repeating to himself, "Sleep now. Daddy coming soon. Go motorbike ride!" I told Jason, "Go to sleep. When Daddy gets here we'll go to the beach." It worked like a charm!

I wasn't anticipating Jason napping before the trip, but since he did I was very glad! I was able to finish cleaning up the kitchen and getting the car all loaded before Eric got home. Zachary's friends came over just after 8:30, and we were all on the road by 9:00.

The road to the beach has in no way improved in the two years since I was last there. It was horrible! We had to stop a few times for Jason to take a potty break, but for the most part he was very patient with the long drive.

It was still drizzling rain when we got to the beach, but we were able to get all our stuff from the car to the beach (1/4 mile) in just one trip. Jan and Bob had arrived earlier than we had, so they'd already grabbed a 'pondok' and set up camp. The boys changed clothes quickly and ran to play in the waves. They were really big! Jason had a blast for about the first 20 minutes, and then it got sort of boring after that. He enjoyed just walking around in the sand, and even got buried in it (in a sitting position) by Grandma and Papa!

After a light dinner of sandwiches, macaroni salad, watermelon and fruit salad, we left the beach early. Jan needed to be home by 3pm for piano rehearsal, so the rest of us came home as well. The boys had worn themselves out, and Jason needed a nap anyways. It was very good to be home so early. We could get everything cleaned up and still have the afternoon and evening to get some things done.

Eric is not flying today. He's got several meetings, some of them are not going to be pleasant. Personnel problems at work. I know he'd much rather be flying! Zachary's had a good day in spite of all the activities yesterday. I let him sleep in until nearly 7:30 this morning, and I think that helped. He was quite red in the face yesterday from sunburn, but he slept well and doesn't look too bad today. Jason's been asking to go to the beach again, but I keep telling him not now...and probably not again for several more months! Could be Stephanie would like to go once more before leaving, but we'll see.

There's still a high overcast today. The weather has definitely changed for the time being!

Stay tuned...