Settling in to Heaven

I do not bounce out of bed in the mornings.  I've tried to change this about myself ohsomany times, but it seems to be a hard and fast, unbreakable law for me.  As strong a law as gravity... I do not bounce out of bed, just as sunblock dropped from the tenth floor will fall and eventually crash onto the pool deck (and explode, in case you're wondering (and scare you to death if you happen to be swimming down there with your kids)).  But a miracle has happened...  Ever since we moved into this new place of ours, I bounce!  Out of bed!  At 6:30 in the morning!  I love it because at around 6:45, this happens:

Quite an amazing start to the day, in my opinion.  And it happens every. single. morning.

Our first few days here were spent unpacking.  Living out of suitcases (or boxes in this case) has a tendency to turn me into a savage animal, so the unpacking process was intense, all-consuming, and then finished within four days (largely finished within two).  Our unpacking process was a little bit difficult because it became apparent very early on that, if we wanted to be able to spend any amount of time in our apartment, all of the stuff we brought was not going to fit.  So, we rented a storage unit and went through all of our things (again) to decide what we really needed, and what could be stored for a year.  While I was busy with the boxes, I realized yet again what an awesome thing it is to have this girl as my first-born.  She kept everyone else happy and pulled out the peanut butter when things got really bad.

Here are five other reasons we love this place (notice, I didn't say the top five reasons... because that list would look like this - #1 Ocean  #2 Ocean  #3 Ocean  #4 Ocean  #5 Ocean - which would make this post quite short, and relatively uninteresting.  Especially since I haven't really taken my camera down to the ocean much, so I wouldn't even have any good pictures to sparkle it up with.):

#1 - We found out about $.99 pizza night

and the kids were happily surprised to see the slices were bigger than their faces.

We had a little bit of excitement when an old lady fainted on the sidewalk.  Brian jumped to action and helped out until the ambulance arrived, and I taught the kids about the manners they should practice of 'not being nosy', while hypocritically snapping a picture from my hip.

#2 - Jumping in the teeny-tiny pool

Brian feels accomplished because he can lie flat in the water and touch one side of the pool with his fingertips and the other side with his toes.  I feel accomplished because I can sit on the side, read a book and keep an eye on the entire pool all at the same time.  (Though, I spend a healthy amount of time playing tag in the water as well (the it-man changes almost as frequently as blinking because there really is no room to run away).)
 
#3 - The beautiful, clear water of the ocean

The water here is in.cred.i.ble.  And, surprisingly different from day to day.  Yesterday, for example, there was seaweed surfing the giant waves and getting trapped up on the bank.  Today the ocean looks like a crystal clear lake, hardly moving at all.   Sometimes the water looks green, other days blue, some days yellow.  It's been fun to get to know the different personalities of the ocean.  But, the greatest thing, in my opinion, is being able to see through the water to the sandy bottom below.  We've seen tiny fish and big fish, a manatee (!) and some sort of something that terrified the snot out of me because everyone panicked and rushed out of the water (and screamed for everyone else to do the same).  It looked like a pack of three small sharks to me, but when I went online to see if I could find out what they were, I had to stop because all the pictures of sharks welled up a deep and intense fear that I've been trying to suppress since I've been here... okay, let's actually back up a bit and end with: and a manatee!

#4 -  Storms

We learned early on that, if a storm blows in on you while you're playing on the beach, just hunker down and sit it out.  So far, the storms have a fun pattern of coming in, hitting hard, sticking around for about five minutes, and then moving along their way.  Carson stood in the storm he's in above for all of 2.7 seconds before the wind literally scared him back inside the house.  He was afraid of being blown away and would not go back out.  That, and the rain was pelting him so hard it felt like little needles.  You can kind of tell how fast the wind is blowing by seeing the streaks of rain travel across his shirt.  My shutter speed was 1/200.

#5 - Fireworks from our balcony

 Not the best picture, but I love the kids in this one.  Carson could. not. stop. jumping for the entire show... he loved it. And Brian and I kept turning to each other with gaping mouths that, had they been articulate at the moment might have said something like, 'how the heck did we get so lucky?!'  (Because that, apparently, is what I come up with when I have time to think about being articulate... ahem... Anyway) It was a fantastic Welcome To The Beach.  The whole day was fun...

We started out watching our relatively quiet beach fill with people.

And then, we stood mesmerized the whole day watching them.  I've always enjoyed people-watching, but this took it to a whole new level!  We could hear their laughter and smell the cook-outs, we watched the pelicans soar back and forth with the wind and spent hours watching the parasailers do flips and tricks off of the waves.

We watched a movie together and were happy to find out that Timothy enjoys television as much as the other kids.

After the show, we played Pictionary out on the balcony.

And laughed big belly laughs at the wind.

(Carson said, 'Kenz... you look like... like a big woman'.)

Eventually, the sun set and we waited anxiously for the city fireworks to begin.  Right. Outside. Our. Window.

So far, this living-on-the-beach thing has been way more than we'd ever hoped it would be...