Walking in the Light

Down the sandy beach path.

Through the park.

Along the paved running trail parallel to the ocean.

This is the way to our gorgeous new (to us), coral rock church building. 

Two miles between us and the church that are full of beautiful, beautiful scenery and - on the way home - sunset lighting. I may melt from happiness.

Did I mention it overlooks the bay?

Our ward congregation split last week and formed a (smaller) ward and a brand new branch.  We, along with the other members who live up along the beach, have been put into the new branch and could not be more excited about it. I've never been part of a branch before (a congregation that is too small to qualify as a 'ward') and the quaint feelings of intimacy and the electrifying feelings of missionary work combine together in such a unique way that I am so glad my children (and Brian and I) get to be part of it for a little while.

Two miles is a bit long for little legs, but we've never been this close to a church building before (in the last decade or so) and so the pull of the Sunday walk-to-church was too strong to ignore.  McKenzie, Timothy, and I thoroughly enjoyed it and, well, we'll work on the rest of the family. 

The first Sunday of the year, our sacrament meeting held maybe 30 people in the pews.  I had 6 of them.  The other large family had 7.  And 4 of them were missionaries. 

Last Sunday the number had jumped to around 50. 

A lot of that jump had to do with people coming back into town after the holidays, but the gospel is spreading like wildfire down here, and the missionaries are working so hard (around 80 baptisms in our ward alone last year).  I've been asked to teach the adult Sunday school class and was moved close to tears last Sunday as I watched the hard faces of adults who had been through hell and back soften with the simple truth that we are children of God.  And that he loves us.  

I feel so indebted to the Lord for allowing me to grow up with these truths being whispered into my ear.  I've heard conversion story after conversion story after conversion story and they all have a ring of similarity to it: I am happier now because of this. I know who I am. I know why I'm here. And I feel so much love.

I'm not sure how I got so lucky to be able to learn and teach this beautiful gospel in such a beautiful building. 

But I'll be keeping this harvest close.

Don't Judge the Bird

I watched the seabird struggle against the wind.  His wings flap, flap, flapped and I could see from below the backwards progress he was making.  He was tilting from side to side and then in a moment of decision, folded his wings into his body and dove - beak first - into the choppy waters below.  He came up empty handed and the wind blew him back over the sand and the dunes.  His flight became more staggered and his elevation dropped and rose and dropped and rose as if he were being jerked around by a cruel and invisible puppeteer.  That is the most ungraceful bird I have ever seen I thought to myself.  His brothers in the air were able to maintain their level of grace and composure despite the high winds... what a funny bird.

He seemed so unsure of himself, so confused at how to use his wings that he kept my attention.  And then, just like that, I was surprised to see him open broadly his magnificent wings and use the winds to soar beautifully, gracefully, majestically through the air directly above my head.  As he passed above, I saw what had been hidden to me from the distance.  He hadn't come up empty handed after all; a giant, floppy fish hung from his tight talons.  A bigger fish than I'd ever seen a bird that size carry.  And as I watched him soar gracefully down the beach to find a place to feed, I realized that he had never been ungraceful.  He had been struggling.  With the fish.


This was interesting to me.  You know, I thought sadly, I wonder how often I've done that to other people.  It seems to me like we're all wrestling in mid-air with sometimes invisible-to-others issues that could make us appear ungraceful, or curt, or unfeeling, or snooty, or fillintheblank.  A problematic car with no money or time to fix it might make me prone to snap at my kids.  A friendship that is falling apart might cause me to appear distant to my husband.  A child who is struggling in school might make me unwilling to help a friend (okay, confession: all of those things have happened).  But most of us are good people who care about others, and who are trying the best we can.  And, thankfully, we all have moments when we soar through life majestically, too.  This bird made me resolve to look deeper, as I continue on through life and its ever changing making-friends-and-keeping-them cycles, and try to be the kind of friend who will look at another with understanding and compassion.  The kind of friend that will be more careful about not letting an impression hide the truth.

Because, as I learned today, someone who might seem ungraceful might actually be very graceful, but struggling instead.

Evenings of Play

I'm used to Brian working long hours.  There have been years in our lives where we hardly see one another and, of course, this has been difficult.  But there has come a rather ironic silver lining from this that I've become aware of: we know how to spend time together.  What I mean by that is that we have had so many years of having just pockets of hours together that we got really good at making the most of those hours.  And since this has all happened through the first decade of our relationship, it has simply become the way things are.  When he is home, we are together.  We watch movies together or play games together.  We talk through the evening hours over a half gallon of ice cream and lately we sit and cuddle out on the balcony and talk about our future while the ocean rings in our ears and the breeze dances through our hair. 

I love this. 
And over the years he has become my best friend. 

So I miss him in years like this one where he is being worked so hard.  This year he gets home late and leaves early.  He takes call often and sleeps at the hospital a few times a month.  We've had worse years in terms of his schedule, but this one falls close to the top.  Even so, there are so many beautiful and wonderful things in this state that I'd like to experience as a family, so we try to make the most of his time with us by getting out and enjoying it when he comes home from work, which means a lot of evening outings.  And, you know what?  I think evening outings are becoming one of my favorite things about this year.  Sometimes I feel like my life is going by like a train on a railroad track.  Fast, straight, not many options for detours, just get from point A to point B as efficiently as possible.  Our evening routine certainly falls underneath the umbrella of this analogy.  An invisible railroad track connecting Dinner to Chores to Pj's to Scriptures to Teeth, Potty, Stories, Songs, and finally arriving at Kids Lights Out. I don't allow much room for flexibility or improvization during these hours because, frankly, I'm tired by this time of the day and it's much easier to let the railroad tracks take me down their well run course.  But... my life is not a train.  And I am free to stop and wander off the course as often as I like, to change up the schedule and to keep our scenery fresh and alive.  And this year, because of my desire to Get Out And Do while Brian is around, I've been forced off the evening tracks enough times to recognize that I really cherish those hours when we're out in the beautiful open air during a magical time of day. 

Anyway - here are some pictures of these types of detoured evenings.  After the work hours are over.

*John D. MacArthur State Park

I love this park.  There's a giant boardwalk that goes out over a smallish inlet and there is wildlife everywhere.

I'm not particularly fond of the spiders, but the park rangers say that they help keep the biting gnats at bay.  So... pick your poison, I guess.  After you leave the spider infested areas, the boardwalk leads you right down to the sand where you can find more creatures if you want to.

I love the beach at our apartment because it has a shallow bottom floor for yards and yards before dropping off in to the deep, but there is something about the depth of that blue water just over the breakers at this park that leaves me breathless. 

And terrified.  A little.  Sharks, you know.

Should-a brought swimming suits.  Always. Bring. Swimming suits.  And, is it just me cringing at McKenzie's rolled up shorts?  My goodness... that child will not stop growing, and those legs put almost as much terror in my heart as the thought of sharks in that deep blue water.

*Jupiter Beach

Should-a brought swimming suits.  Always. Bring. Swimming suits.  This park is so beautiful at sunset.  See the lighthouse in the background of the previous picture?  I keep seeing lighthouses around and then feeling like I should really spend some time thinking about them, because there is potential there for me to really fall in love with the symbolism behind them.  But they just don't do anything for me now.  I'm much more in love with the clouds and the sun and the water and how all three of those things combine in such... ways... it leaves me speechless.

See that reflecting light?!  Trust me, it was better in real life.  Still trying to figure out how to capture things as they actually are...

Lots of shallow water.

Lots of rocks, and just enough sand.

*Football Night
 

We realized something was terribly wrong with our parenting when the kids started using the words football, soccer ball, and basketball interchangeably.  Brian vowed to change that.  We are now the proud parents of football experts.  Not really.  But at least they know what a football is now.  I think.  And McKenzie and Carson seem to understand the rules well enough to enjoy the games.  This guy took a football to the face and decided moping in the grass would be a better activity for the evening.

And this guy just sat on a blanket and looked cute enough to eat.

So...
What should we do tonight?

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...