Rainy Weekend at the Beach

Typical spring weather around here is some sun, followed by rain, followed by clouds and then repeat, sometimes in the space of just a few minutes. This weekend was no exception. We headed to the beach Saturday morning and got all this weather on the way over. There was some sun Saturday afternoon and the above picture is of the ceanothus hedge that we planted a couple of years ago. It goes along the edge of our teeny lawn and at this time of year is covered with gorgeous blue flowers.

This is a big weekend in the area where our house is-not only is it a holiday but they also hold what is advertised as the "World's Longest Garage Sale." Luckily the weather didn't stop that from happening and we spent a few hours driving around and screeching to a halt wherever we saw a sign. We were looking for bikes for the kids to keep over at the beach and scored a nice Huffy for Annie and the buy of the day, a brand new Schwinn sting-ray for Jack. It's perfect and we decided to swap it out for his bike at home (which he loves, but is too small), so brought the new one home with us. As soon as we got home he was out riding it up and down the sidewalk.

It rained most of the rest of the time we were there and Sunday we had a "Slug Day," our family name for a day spent in jammies playing games and watching movies. One of our guilty pleasures on these kinds of days is to watch "America's Next Top Model." The kids got all the cushions and pillows in the house and arranged them in the living room to form a runway. It was funny to see how their personalities came out as they played. Annie is always the director of everything for the three of them. She was organizing the creation of the runway and telling the other two what to do.



Bethany, on the other hand, our drama girl, was walking the runway as soon as it was ready. She twirled and posed, always with a serious "model" look on her face.



Jack, it must be admitted, has been persuaded in the past to do the whole runway model walk himself. However, he much prefers to be an action hero. On this day, he was into being Avatar, the Last Airbender, and was full of kicks and fierce looks. And that mark on his shoulder is not a bruise, it's watercolor paint. He is the only one of the three that manages to consistently get whatever paint, crayon or marker he is using ALL over his body. He is such a boy!