Where has the time gone?

It seems like just yesterday we celebrated Chase’s birthday and now it is the start of school! Since my last entry, we have been to the beach twice, started,  and are still waiting to finish,  a remodeling project downstairs,  celebrated Jason’s birthday, started Chase’s soccer season, been to South Bend (just the adults!) and marked the start of school for all 4 boys!

Okay, now to try and get caught up. The first item on the list was a trip to the beach to visit with Meme, Popi, Lindsey and the girls. We haven’t all been together since Easter and that was only for a few hours. This was a several day span at the beach with 5 adults and 7 kids under the age of 7. How did it go? GREAT! The kids had so much fun playing together and they all seemed to create their own play groups. The partners switched from activity to activity and there were no fights (except the standard sibling squabbles with my boys when we were tired or hungry).

They visited, ran around the beach, played in the water, watched cartoons, played board games and had a great time with each other.  It was amazing to me to watch how they would get in their own little ‘pods’ at certain times. Allye and the triplets usually hung out with each other but when Allye would nap, Addison would join the triplets and run the show. When inside the house, Olivia and Chase would do their own thing, which was usually to play a board game. Olivia was amazing with Chase and was so patient when explaining the rules of the board game to him. She seemed to figure out quickly that his board game time at home is non-existent these days and was more than willing to help him learn. On the other hand, Chase and Addison would partner up at the beach and do their own version of boogie boarding. Since they are so close in age it was pretty easy to give them some guidelines for the water and have one adult watch both of them at the same time. Then another adult would play with Olivia and the others would be watch with the toddler group. It seems that on every trip to the beach, the kids manage to find someone on the beach with a casting net. They then con that person into letting them watch up close and help ‘monitor’ the minnow bucket. This is a task they take quite seriously and it involves any kid on the beach at the moment! There were many hours spent digging, tunneling, burying and just playing in the sand by all.

 

The first of many trenches and piles of sand to occupy the toddlers

The little dots in the water are our people but even I can't tell which ones!

The start of Mermaid Olivia

Welcome to the Beach! (L-R clockwise: Jack, Allye, Chase, Olivia, Addison, Graham, Anthony)

Guarding the minnows

I know that I speak for both Jason and myself when I say how much fun the trip was. We were a little apprehensive about the adult to kid ratio but the kids outdid themselves with their behavior and I can say that we loved every minute of our time with the girls, Lindsey and Meme and Popi. Our time with them is limited so we have come to value every chance we get to be together. The good news is that we already have our next trip with them planned for October so the kids will get to play again sooner rather than later!