Cousin Fun at the Beach

On Sunday afternoon, my sister Nadine and her family joined us at the beach. We hadn't all been at the beach since her twins were babies--with six children and four adults, we figured it would be quite crowded! However, it worked out fine. The kids had a wonderful time together, as usual.


Sisters on the beach:

Nick and Garrett goofing off

Daniel:

Daniel with big cousin Chris:

Ryan, wet and completely and proudly covered in sand:

A coloring party back at the house:

Yay! Curious George stickers:

Nadine and David relaxing:

We celebrated Nicholas and Christopher's birthdays (9/4 and 8/23, respectively) with ice cream sundaes. Nadine, who is the gifted greeting card writer in the family, wrote a beautiful card to Christopher, and it had us all in tears. She wrote about remembering his first few days, weeks, and months of life, and how much we all desperately prayed for his survival...and what a wonderful young man he is growing up to be. It was an amazing love letter from an aunt to a nephew. What made it especially poignant was recalling that Nadine, David, and my parents were all at the beach together on August 23, 1996, the day Chris was born. This was in the days before abundant cell phones. When I went into labor unexpectedly at 24 weeks, we had no easy way to get hold of them. After Chris was born, Mike asked the nurses to call the Rockaway Police, who drove to the beach house to convey the news. They had no information beyond news of the birth--no sex, name, or even if he had survived. I cannot imagine their worry and stress levels while they were driving all the way back to Portland, not knowing how any of us were doing. So reading Nadine's card made us all cry, remembering that day.

Nicholas enjoying his birthday song

Soon-to-be-13-year-old Chris

Garrett and Daniel

Kieran and Ryan

Almost done with that (first) bowl of ice cream!

Nick and Garrett in a "fort" on the beach--which was a big hole with logs and sticks piled over it. Said fort got disassembled a few hours later, because Nick threw Kieran's shoes into the hole, and one of his orthotic inserts got lost. We were all digging for it (and promising the kids a reward if they found it). Alas, it was not to be found, even after we disassembled the fort so the adults could get down into the hole to look. Well, it's only money, right? I am finding myself saying that too often lately...

The boys wading into the water--it was ice cold, but you know kids--they don't seem to mind it!

In the meantime, the rest of us were bundled up in sweatshirts, because typical of the Oregon Coast, even though it was sunny, it was not "hot" on the beach.

Kieran post-swim

Sand angels

Mike, David, and Ashley

We feel so lucky to have a wonderful beach house to retreat to, and to live only an hour and a half from a beautiful coastline! I suppose I take it for granted sometimes...but I know I could never live very far away from a large body of water.