Christmas beach pictures.

Our home away from home for the week! Since there are no park benches at the beach... Johnny made his own!

I stole this idea from Michelle the Crafty Mama! It looks better close up.

No, my manly men are not prancing!!! I caught them mid-land.

Oh... how I wish this picture was the norm!

While it was cold, rainy and awful at home only 40 minutes away... the beach was sunny, warmish, and lovely for the most part. We did have a few cloudy days and some rain... but it subsided quickly and gave way to some spectacular sun and cloud displays.

We kept a mini ocean terarium of sea life during our stay, which Johnny thought we were keeping... sadly... no... and we had a star fish, loads of clams, and a hermit crab. When we let them go back to the ocean... all the little clams dug themselves in... the star fish washed away and the hermit crab burrowed deep into the sand.

The kids biked, played catch and frisbee, we had huge bonfires, and ate smores.

It was great... because they forgot about the gifts they got, and focused on us being together as a family, in the simplest of ways...

I suppose I am a selfish woman. I know many people have large get togethers with loads of people for the holidays, and while I do wish sometimes we had that... I really enjoy our holidays just being 'us'. Bill and I were their main focus, and they were our main focus. With both of our parents being divorced and remarried, the holidays are a quite difficult time for Bill and me.

We've come to the thinking that 'just us' is what we will do from now on until our kids get married, and now we are brainwashing them ... er... I mean... suggesting that when they are all married with kids, we all get together as one family every other Sunday.

No... they WON'T move away.... LA LA LAL ALALAL LAL LA LA LA ... I can't hear that!!!

More pictures to come...

I have to take this a little slowly... I'm not completely "back" yet... my head is still hearing the roar of the ocean... and I don't want to lose it yet.