this and that

Katy and I have been reading some picture books about the beach, and the plot of each of them goes something like this: the kid wakes up in his own bed in the morning, packs a beach bag with a towel, shovel, and some snacks, drives to the beach, plays all day, and is home for a bath by nightfall.


Obviously the authors of these books don't live in the Midwest.



Those of us in Ohio, particularly those with small children, start preparing weeks and weeks ahead of time to make the 12 hour trek to the coast. Then we have to stay for a solid week to make it worth our while. But hopefully all of this prep will make the same kind of lasting memories for our landlocked kiddos.




So I'm in the middle of hoarding everything that we might need for a week at the beach in the guest room. Need a swimsuit or a bottle of sunscreen? Too bad! Not this week, it's already packed!




Also by some minor miracle, it appears that we might be squeezing our trip in between hurricanes. We are thankful for this, and certainly continue to pray for those affected by Ike in the gulf. It seems like they can't catch a break down there lately.




In other news, David is SO big. I can't believe how huge he seems to me. I feel like he is bigger every time I go to get him out of his crib. I'm wondering when this will slow down, because at this rate he'll pass up Katy in a few more months.




Katy is hilarious. She's already starting to make dramatic statements all the time with drawn out words. The other morning I came downstairs and she was eating breakfast with Brian. She saw me coming and said, "I loooooove Daddy, Mommy. He's sooooooo funny."


She's also soaking things up like crazy. She has a set of stamps that are each of the letters of the alphabet. The other day I told her to spell her name. We've spelled her name a hundred times in various forms, but I couldn't believe she came up with this: (she stamped them in the correct order, but did it right to left)

So we'll have our laptop with us on vacation and will apparently have wifi. So maybe I will have a chance to post some trip updates. I'm sure I'll have some interesting stories to share about my litte waterbug and my chunky monkey.