Summer Beach Pictures

I have been taking my camera to the beach every week and have come up with great shots.

We go to the Point Dume area of Zuma Beach off Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

It's about 30 minutes from our house.

This is a compilation of shots from the past few weeks.

This is a sunset from our front yard last week.

Katherine loves the waves and has no fear.....

Though after taking this shot, maybe she should rethink her bravery...

Jeffrey is fishing with seaweed, and Katherine takes another spill

More frolicking

Jeffrey enjoying the moment

Jeffrey as the Sorcerer in "Commanding the Waters"

Katherine trying her hand at controlling the waves...
Either that or she's trying for Master of Silly Walks

A few waves pictures.. I must have taken 100 of them

4 of them out in the waves

LOOK! Out there...........

It's dolphins!!

Jeffrey was racing with them up and down the beach

The boys were thrilled they were so close to shore.

Here the boys were enjoying the way the sand felt on their feet

And here they come looking like they just had their nails done

Katherine spent a lot of time panning for sand crabs

Here everyone is trying to count how many were in the bucket

Jeffrey looks shocked he found some in his bucket

Here the girls were trying to divide them all up so everyone had the same number

Sarah takes a look

The kids spend a lot of time digging holes while we are on the beach

Jacob and Jeffrey would dig to China if they could

Jeffrey testing the depth of this hole

A collaborative effort well done

Everyone got themselves into the hole today

Katherine and Olivia spend a lot of time building sand castles

They are never very big, but they have fun making them

Always the ham

Jeffrey shows off his amazing 10 year old physique

Charles Atlas.. watch out!!

Katherine finds digging holes to be a tiring experience

In their best effort yet, Jacob relaxes at the bottom of their masterpiece

Jeffrey brings the water to  demonstrate the built in tunnel they created

Alex enjoys the relative quiet

Sarah snoozes in the sun

The seagulls seems to have a lot of yelling to do.
Of course after they ate Olivia's sandwich, there shouldn't be too much for them to complain about

I caught this one taking off

Pelicans.. a lot of them!

The lifeguard is surfing in his boat

One day, I promise I'm going to own a beautiful house on the beach
Of course I better be in shape if it's one of these because the hike down the mountain is a killer!

Lifeguard station #3

Kayakers

These last photos were of the little kids from the family who was sitting near us.
They were so cute and really enjoying themselves

Reality... when did this happen?

OK. Cold hard reality of the situation is that I am simply not going to be able to keep up with this blog the way I want to during this summer.

My computer is basically a timeshare while the kids are home.

I get time when others are willing to share.

The computer is in Alex's room and he uses it to hide from the reality of the upcoming school year. 5 AP classes + Honors something else I don't remember. He is frantically trying to spend as much time killing zombies and improving his prestige level in Black OPs because he knows once school starts he will be lucky if he gets an hour a week away from schoolwork.

Then Jeffrey begs (add whines and rolls around on the ground) to play a new game Alex came up with called Minecraft and it can only be played on this computer. So we allow him 45 minutes to an hour a day to dig in the dirt so he can collect rocks and loot and whatever else he unearths to build a house. I cannot for the life of me understand why the boys find this so exciting.

Then I have to list on eBay. It takes me a lot more time than I would like it to, to take pictures, process pictures, upload pictures, write the auctions, fine tune the auctions and get them listed. By the time I am through doing that I either dont feel like sitting around here anymore or I have 2 boys hanging over my shoulder wondering when I'm going to be finished so whoever is faster can slide into the chair to play their games. This also makes it hard to use the bathroom when I'm listing because if I don't choose exactly the right moment when no one is paying attention, I will find my chair occupied when I return.

AND I've found this new passion of keeping my trip countdown blog so whenever I have a moment and feel like blogging I tend to go there.

But I promise that I will keep doing what I can here and once school starts again in a month I will be back to posting some of the regular features.

Thank you all for bearing with me... and stop by the trip countdown for some really great photos!!!

The Thought Process of a 10 Year Old

I was confronted today with the realization that kids are in their own world and do not necessarily use this wonderful thing we humans are supposed to be blessed with called "thought process".

I can't count how many times I have said "Does that make any sense? Use your brain and think it through!".

But a kid would have to realize that they AREN'T thinking it through in the first place and since mine are 10 and 11, that's just not going to happen.

This afternoon I was taking a moment and reading on the couch while Jeffrey & Katherine and Jacob & Olivia were outside soaking each other with Nerf water guns.

They had only been out there for maybe 5 minutes when Katherine and Olivia came stomping inside.

"What's wrong?" I asked (not REALLY wanting to know because it might mean I had to get up and referee).

Katherine immediately began explaining: "I accidentally" (read: on purpose) "shot Jeffrey in the ear with water and when I tried to tell him I didn't mean to, he told me I did it on purpose, and when I told him I didn't" (read" I did but don't want to admit it) "he told me to SHUT UP. And we don't want to play anymore anyway."

And off they went into the bedroom to sit their wet behinds on the floor after I have told them 100 times not to...

But I digress.

Fast forward 15 minutes and in come Jeffrey and Jacob, laughing and giggling.

As they are hurrying through I ask "Jeffrey... did you tell Katherine to shut up?"

"OK, no problem" Jeffrey calls out and hurries even faster towards his room.

Wait, what?

"Jeffrey?!?"

He pops his head around the corner... "Yes?"

"What did you think I just said?"

"You told me to 'go tell Katherine to shut-up'. But I haven't done it yet."

Seriously son?

In what reality did you wake up in this morning?

"Jeffrey do you honestly think I would tell you to tell your sister to shut up?"

"Well I don't know... maybe... she can get pretty loud and I know if I get tired of it, then you must get tired of it too. I figured I was doing you a favor because this way you didn't have to get up and go tell her yourself."

OK, I was wrong.

He did think it through.

Just not the way I hoped he would.

You were saying what?

This has been one of those weeks.

I have a lot them so when one shows up I shouldn't be surprised.

I know I need a vacation from my life when I find myself doing things that if I were calm and stress free wouldn't happen. The type of things that make Jeff close his eyes, shake his head and wonder what he got himself into by marrying someone like me.

This morning I got up from the couch, walked into the kitchen to see what time it was, went back into the living room sat down and realized I hadn't actually been paying any attention and had to go back check again.

Then I took a shower, got out and started to wrap my hair in a towel and realized I didn't rinse the shampoo out of my hair.

I try to tell myself that at least I haven't answered the door naked so that must count for something right?
AND I haven't lost any credit cards, my Costco card or locked my keys in the car anytime in the last month so I'm doing good right?

RIGHT??

The apple must not fall far from the tree because today Sarah called and said she was all moved into her new larger apartment but she forgot to call the electric company and tell them she needed power. She said the power was on when she moved in over the weekend but when she woke up this morning, it had been turned off. So she was walking around in a sweltering hot sauna and she kept trying to turn the lights on every time she went into a different room. And on top of that her cell phone was dying so she went and plugged it into the charger, waited, then couldn't figure out why the power indicator went down instead of up.

Yep... like mother like daughter.

I eventually got a hold of the power company for her since her cell phone had about 5 minutes left on it and talked them into turning the power on same day. I convinced them she might otherwise die of heat exhaustion.

So my goal is to make enough money in the next few months to send me (OK and the rest of the crew too) on vacation. My brain just needs something to look forward too. And I think a nice 2 week stay in central Florida just might do the trick.

ARGH! and OOPS!

Damn it...... Where did the week go?

Well part of it went into going back to the sadist dentist (any wonder why those words sound so similar?) and having to have my poor mouth packed with this stuff to help it heal since is wasn't.

Happy to report that at least that seems to have worked.

But in other news, it was a big week of OOPS! and  ARGH!

Two (count 'em TWO) times this week I was innocently sitting on the sofa enjoying my morning coffee when it suddenly got a mind of it's own and did a triple gainer into my lap. Which then also included the couch and the carpet as well.

When it happened this morning Jeffery immediately went into "fix-it" mode (after I flew into the air with a string of colorful language that should have been bleeped out) . "Mom.. it's Saturday, the best day of the week, so nothing bad can happen right? This wasn't too bad was it? You can fix it right? Can I get paper towels. Can I help you clean it?"

It was hard to be too upset after that.

And for the ARGH portion of the program, I give you our dinner last night.

We are all sitting around enjoying some really good hamburgers chatting and feeling relieved that the evening was  getting cooler when the dog started sniffing around and looking out the door.

Now this is a big deal with the dog because if you miss her cues she is likely to go to the SAME damn spot in the den and piddle. (Insert irritated face here).

So I told Katherine to take her out and make sure she went.

Katherine carried her out and about 2 minutes later brought her in and announced that she had peed and pooped. (The dog, not Katherine in case you were wondering.)

OK good. I thought, now she's good for a couple of hours.

"OH NO!" Jeffrey looked horrified.

OH crap.. that's never a good thing to hear out of your kid.

And I looked down and indeed Oh Crap was the right term to have used.

Apparently if you do not give your shaggy dog a Brazilian wax of the behind they have the tendency to get hanger-on-ers.

And what does a dog do when it gets into one of these unfortunate situations?

It sits down (on the carpet) and proceeds to butt-ski in a zig-zag line along said carpet until it manages to dislodge all of the offending hanger-on-er.

OH CRAP OH CRAP OH CRAP!

I'm not sure if I was stating the obvious or just really pissed off.

I think it was a little of both.

I grabbed the dog and tossed her and her poopy rear out the door.

When I turned around I noticed that no one was left at the table.

Way to be supportive guys.

Turns out only the kids abandoned me, Jeff had hustled to the laundry room to get the carpet cleaning machine.

The machine did the trick but I couldn't use it to clean the dog, so I had to carry her in (at arms length), throw her in the sink and bathe her (for the second time this week).

Today I am going to look into the butt waxing thing so as not to have to go through that all over again.

Seeing as this weekend is going to be over 100° for the next 3-4 days, I may decide to wax the entire dog and not just her rear.