Beach Blast

Our Sunday School teachers own a house at Topsail Island and Saturday they invited us for a day of rest and relaxation after VBS. We stayed overnight Friday in Newton Grove with a dear family from church who have a little boy Leah’s age and an 8-year-old. They were so generous to cut out the hour drive back home just to turn around and come back again the next morning! Leah loved spending the night at "Grayson’s" house, even though once we were there, she spent more time with Lorin. She even ended up having a sleepover in Lorin’s room, sharing an air mattress with her. I didn’t even have to read her a book at bedtime. They ended up not going to sleep until after 10:30! (Thankfully, she was around enough friends all day Saturday that she wasn’t grumpy.)

(The Dardens, like many people at Newton Grove, live out in the country. I'm told you must own a golf cart and a tractor in order to fit in there!)

It’s only an hour and a half trip to the beach (we’ll be going there more often once we’re in Newton Grove). When we got there, we had lunch and then headed straight to the beach. Leah wouldn’t stop asking! We had a hard time keeping her out of the water! She was a fish and probably would have run right out into the water if we hadn’t stopped her. She loved sitting—or even laying—on the shore and letting the waves cover her. She built “sludge” castles with Daddy and her friends (and once we were done, I must have washed a cup full of mud out of her diaper and swimsuit!)

(Leah loves her friend Hannah and wanted to go wherever she was.)

Andrew, on the other hand, didn’t much care for the water and whimpered every time the waves came towards us. He was perfectly content sitting on a blanket on the shore digging in the dirt. And he was covered from head to toe! It didn’t take long for him to get bored, though, so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time on the beach.

We got back to the house and went for a boat ride. Leah and Grayson couldn’t resist the lull of the boat’s motor and were asleep within minutes. They must have slept the whole trip!

After the boat ride we came back and just hung out until dinner—a huge seafood broil! The kids killed time by digging in the rocks, filling up buckets and trucks. They must have spent a good hour doing this. I am so grateful that our class is like a little family-- even if I couldn't keep my eye on Leah or Andrew the whole time, I knew they were okay-- everyone was looking out for each other's kids. What a blessing to have so many people who cared for us all day!

We didn’t get home till late again, so Leah was up way past bedtime 3 nights in a row—with only short naps. She’s been a trooper, really well behaved actually, but her Mommy and Daddy are sure exhausted!