Thursday, July 16, 2009

Sand Castles

After the rescue of the blue inner tube (lost at this point? Read yesterday’s post and you will be all caught up!), things settled into a slow routine. Because our state is having the coldest summer on the books, the water was a bit chillish. S2 actually floated around on a raft with his towel wrapped around him. But the sun was hot so they kept diving in and coming out freezing cold, teeth chattering, blue lipped. Great fun.

K.E. was asked by her daughter, E., to make a sand castle. I have never ever seen K.E. dirty and thought that was a huge sacrifice on her part. But then the other kids jumped in and quickly everyone was involved. Except me. I didn’t want to intrude on a special mother daughter moment. I don’t know about these moments, but I imagine they are much like mother son moments. But then again, all my boys and K.E.’s son was involved now too so was I really intruding?

I sat there indecisively until I seen that they needed some dry sand and I was right on it. “Couldn’t resist, could you?” K.E. grinned.

We built the coolest sand castle with moats EVER! It was so much fun! With all of us working on different parts, the kids would say “ah cool, how did you do that?” or “who built this?” and run around to check out the ‘new development’.

E, having the time of her life, declared “isn’t this the best fun? It’s like we are a great big family all working together!”

I know for a fact building sand castles is not K.E’s favorite thing to do. I know I would normally be engrossed in a novel at the beach. But that was the coolest thing to the kids that we were down getting dirty with them.
A good reminder. They are only young so long….take advantage of the time you have. A novel will always be there! And showers, usually, get you clean. But the memory those kids have of their moma’s help on the coolest sand castle (yet!) will last a long time – well, I hope it does!

4 comments:

Karen Hossink said...

Yes. The memory is certainly worth making!
Have you ever made a sand castle by dribbling wet sand over and over and over and over until it makes towers? They look very cool!

The Whites said...

what a fun memory!!

Shannon said...

Very fun. I hope you didn't get sand on your camara! (I worry about these things!)

I just thought of that favorite beach that I couldn't remember: Hoffmaster! It's a bit more rocky (wear shoes), but SUCH a beautiful spot.

ValAnn said...

You are so right! The memories that we take time to make are much more important that finishing the chapter we are in before putting the book down. Life moves way to quick to miss out on any chance of special memories, and often the most special are those that are simple!