Great things about our family time (for the record)at the beach include…

- Some 20+ times of playing at the beach. Not all were successful trips, but the majority were. Gage was, for nearly every trip, a nice brother to Quinn. He played with her, helped her and generally acted normal.

- Biking. The kids biked a lot. Gage had a walkie talked and it was nice to let him go 3 blocks away all the while him talking on it to let us know he was okay. It was even kinda responsible, which is surprising, since you know, Gage and the word RESPONSIBLE aren’t usually in the same sentence.

- Little work.

- We did nearly everything together and let the kids lead what they wanted to do. It was pretty carefree and unlike their lives most of the time.

- We laughed a lot.

- We celebrated Christmas and NY pretty low key and low stress, which was new and fantastic.

- We spent less money than we do in one week here during the summer.

- We saw Gage smile more in a two week period than we can remember in other two week periods.

- We took a real break from school stuff. We took the pressure off of them for a couple of weeks. We kept up a little with reading and a lot with coins, but it wasn’t stressful because it wasn’t a lot.

- We saw dolphins close up.

- Oh, the sea shells. Including a day trip on a boat to an island with mounds and mounds of shells.

- Seeing Gage, on his own, pick up trash on the island, the beach and around the grounds of the house. See? He’s not all hardhearted.

- Reduced doctor visits. Always a plus.

- Fresh seafood – caught that day fresh. Gage still ate only PB&J (like 8 sandwiches a day) but Quinn tried a lot which was fun. She was sad though (and cried in the restaurant) when she realized she can never each raw oysters anymore.

- Quinn so badly wanted to find sand dollars and we only found a few broken pieces one night and then our trip to Sand Dollar Island got canceled because of the waves and she was sad, so on NYE I placed two perfectly perfect sand dollars (@ 1.99 each) in front of her while we were searching with a flashlight. Oh man, were those squeals delightfully heard up and down the beach. She ran to Julian to show him and YELLED  “I can’t believe we found them! And we were just minding our own business!”

- The kids are both healthy (physically) and we were together.

- The kids have never stayed up to see midnight (I know! Bad parents!) so we thought it would be special if they did for NYE at the beach. Fireworks at 10, then again at midnight. Very, very exciting to see their excitement.

It was a virtual love fest for two weeks. It was a different vacation because we didn’t get anytime away as a couple like we normally do when we vacation with other people, but the trade off was worth it.