Sand, Sand, Everywhere Sand

Ok so I'm about done bombarding you with all these vacation posts :-) I've saved these last two posts for no reason other than my husband was going to use some of the things I wanted to write as illustrations for his message tonight at the singles meeting. And out of the kindness of my heart I didn't want them sitting there thinking, oh yeah I read that on Tara's blog. Not like that's happened before or anything...

Well what trip to California would be complete without some time at the beach? I only brought my camera down one day so I'm kind of stuck with the pictures I got. But I did bring it down on the day the best ever sand castle was built! Leave it to men to like a little competition. Chris and I made some friends who were sitting next to us on the beach one day. It went a little like this-

us "Hey can we borrow your shovel to dig a hole real quick? Our tiny plastic one isn't doing the trick."
them "sure, no problem, here ya go"
us- start to dig and instantly break their shovel.... "uh sorry nice new people on the beach... we owe you a shovel"

Well they were kind and let us know it was conveniently about to break before they gave it to us. We talked for awhile, found out they live within ten minutes of us back in AZ, found out they don't attend church, talked to them about the Lord and invited them to church. Gosh I love Chris' evangelistic heart! Ok so back to the competition. It's now a different day and Chris noticed our new friends building a sand castle with some people. That got Chris up and he decided that he too needed to be building a castle, which got up our long time, reigning champ in sand castle building, family friend, Tom up. It was awesome. Chris ended up taking Rylee up to the room for a nap and Tom completely took over and created a masterpiece. Stairs, Tunnels with "T"'s on them, trenches to collect water etc. The kids, and Tom, were so proud!

nice clean trevor before it all began





not so happy rylee:

happy rylee:



The kids enjoyed playing in the water. The first day Rylee would cry anytime she went near the ocean and Taylor kind of steered clear. Even Trevor was unsure. But by the end of the week they were loving the water. Trevor couldn't get enough. He rode a boogie board with my dad pulling it through the surf as the wave crashed. Taylor & Trevor created this game where they'd take fists of sand and run out into the ocean and through it at a crashing wave then run back. Almost as if to taunt the waves. They've yet to experience God's power through the ocean :-)