Carlos was off for Labor Day this year. After sleeping in, we headed out to the beach to enjoy each other’s company and the nice weather. (The boys and their friends headed to the Lake.)
We started off at the pizza parlor, which was delicious.
Next, we hit the beach. We really lucked out with the nice weather. It was such a beautiful day!!
Ashley was able to fly the kite that she bought when she had stayed a week with her great grandma. Carlos helped Ashley get the kite going. We have never flown kites together before. Ashley & Carlos had a good time flying it. David was kind of scared of the kite, but we are not sure why.
We stayed for a few hours, and could have stayed much longer. Ashley had soccer practice that evening though, and we needed to get back for that.
Carlos took this picture of David and I. Usually there are not very many pictures of me and the kids, since I am usually the one behind the camera. Thanks Carlos!
This was my favorite shot of Emily. She just loves the beach! I think she is very photogenic.
On our way home, we stopped at a convenience store to pick up some ice cream for the car ride home. The lady working at the store had a small dog behind the counter with her. For those of you who don’t know, Ian gets very nervous around dogs. While we were picking out our items, Ian got a little nervous but then the dog went outside and all was well. That was, until right after we were done paying. As we were going out the door, the dog came back in. Ian did not want to walk by the dog, in order to leave the store. As we tried to lead Ian around the dog, Ian decided to bend down and pick up the dog with his free hand and try to toss the dog outside. Ian’s attempt did not work and he started to back up and knocked down some containers. (All of this happened in a matter of seconds.) People were also trying to walk into the store at the same time. I’m so glad that Carlos was there to help. He was strong enough to pull Ian out of the store while I stayed back to pick up the merchandise that Ian knocked down.
Fast forward: After Ashley’s soccer practice, we had family home evening and a Labor Day BBQ.
I made these pencils up while Ashley was at soccer practice. I got the idea from pinterest. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/300122762651897156/
It was much-needed, as I did not have anything prepared. I just knew that I wanted our FHE lesson to have a back to school theme.
For our BBQ, we had carne asada, hot dogs & Oysters. I also made this sweet summertime lemonade.
As we ate dinner, the kids took turns picking out a pencil and reading the principle or value that was attached to the pencil. Then they had a chance to talk about why it was important. Next, the kids got to use their pencils to fill out their first day of school interview forms. For dessert we had orange creamsicles. Then it was off to bed, because I let them stay up later than I usually would have, on the eve of the first day of school.
It was nice for our family to be able to come together for a BBQ & FHE after a busy day out by the water. The boys were thankful to be able to spend their last day of summer with friends at the lake, and I was happy we were able to take the younger kids (and Ian) out to the beach. That is something that we would have loved to do earlier in the summer (and probably more than once), but with Ian coming to live with us we were definitely thrown for a loop as far as our usual summer traditions go and even our daily life as we knew it.
For now, Ian is our new normal. We are trying our best to keep doing the same activities and things that we enjoy doing with our children, while trying to accommodate Ian at the same time. So we finally did end up making it out to the beach…..it just ended up being on the last day of summer, before school started. 😉