Day Trip with Mike, Kress & the Chilluns!

Good morning!! Well, a few weeks ago (before Esther came) Mike and Kress and Mikie III and Carlos were all going to the beach for a relaxing little day trip, and they invited me to go along as a nanny!! I was super excited, of course. Simply thrilled. Being an Aunt next door is so much fun! I'm so blessed. :) They were very dear for letting me go along!

So, bright and early, we head out toward the Great Deep with a beach umbrella, our swimmies, floaties, strollers and coolers and other beach-y stuff, ready to jump into the clear, cool waves....Ah. Bliss. We're finally here...dig your toes into the cool sand...you can hear the waves come crashing up, clear and green, and then, sometimes, they are blue, or white...a sea gull flies right over our little camp-the air smells crisp and tangy, and the babies cry and laugh and nap and play in the water...you close your eyes, and you feel the sun shine down on you, urging you to go float on the waves, and taste the salty water, and plunge into it's deep, swaying rhythm...

The ocean. It is one of the most beautiful gifts God gave us, I believe. He is so kind and good!!Mike dear and his cast-net...

Kressy dear The sea gulls (or whatever those are, LOL) were so beautiful!! They didn't seem afraid of us, either-they came right beside us and would swoop down and eat our discarded pizza crusts! Critter (Mikie III) was in awe. :)
Isn't this a neat picture!!? I was so tickled! That's our pizza crust it's got there...I prayed the Lord would help me to get a picture of one when it would swoop down right near us, and He did! He is so sweet and thoughtful to us...

Husband and wife enjoying the waves together...aww, just precious.Mike and Critter made a sand castle, which Critter then felt the need to promptly sit upon. Haha!! Ham Child.
Little Shell (this beach was so nice!! There were tons of beautiful shells, nice waves, mostly elderly people reading in beach chairs, and tons of room!! The Lord really blessed our time."Look, Mike!!! There's another one!!"
LOL, Carlos is soo adorable!! Here he is, enjoying a snack of seaweed. :)
"Is not My word like fire?" declares the LORD, "and like a hammer which shatters a rock ? Jeremiah 23:29

He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. Psalm 40:2

Shadows and Sand
This ship that passed by was absolutely colossal-huge!!!
A surfer with no waves...Critter's crashed...These little birds were so beautiful...
Kress told me those little things you see on the rocks is the same stuff that would attach itself to the bottom of their boat when she was growing up in the ocean. I'm sure that was a real ordeal trying to scrap them all off...But they are kind of pretty, in a way, aren't they? :)OH, and, look, y'all!!! I saw dolphins!! Up close!! How cool is that!? There were, like, maybe 10 of them, all jumping in and out! It was really neat. And----Here's the highlight, well, fishie-like-highlight thing that happened that day-I was walking out to about my waist, and heard Kressy, back near the shore, shouting something to Mike, and they both were trying to tell me something, and were coming out to where I was-then, I turned back, and saw this thing swim off real quick-it was a shark!!!! A real, live one! Isn't that cool!!!? I was in the water with a shark!!! Kress said she saw it swimming all around me, but I was looking for shells and didn't see it-she went to go get Mike 'cause she knew if I discovered it on my own I would have freaked out, which I'm sure I would have-she was so sweet to do that. Anyway, very neat. They said it was too small to kill me, but could have taken a chomp or two if it had wanted too. Kress, (who knows all about sharks and things, having grown up in the Caribbean and lived on a boat) said it was chasing schools of fish. I'm so grateful that the Lord protected me, and let them tell me instead of me seeing it!! Anyway, that was exciting.
That afternoon, a huge, beautiful storm came up...it was so amazing to see lightening against a dark blue, grey sky...and watch the waves turn different colors...As He was going along by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.
Mark 1:16-18

And, I shall end with a man fishing on the rocks.

That evening, Mike took us all to Kressy's favorite, Olive Garden, and we enjoyed a huge, delicious meal before heading home, sure to dream of the salty waves and the great, deep ocean, and of sunshine and babies and dolphins and sharks and orange shells...Ah. It was truly a day to remember.

Thank You, Lord.